Moscow Rules

48 PARIS

The 7:28 P.M. TGV train from Marseilles eased into the Gare de Lyon ten minutes ahead of schedule. Gabriel did not find this surprising; unionized French drivers could always shave a bit of time off the journey when they wanted to get home early. Crossing the deserted arrivals hall with his overnight bag in hand, he gazed up at the soaring arched ceiling. Three years earlier, the historic Paris landmark had been severely damaged by a suicide bomber. It might have been reduced to rubble had Gabriel not managed to kill two other terrorists before they could detonate their explosives, an act of heroism that had briefly made him the most wanted man in all of France.

A dozen taxis were waiting in the circular drive outside the station; Gabriel walked to the Boulevard Diderot and hailed one there instead. The address he gave the driver was several blocks away from his true destination, which was a small apartment house on a quiet street near the Bois de Boulogne. Confident he had not been followed, he presented himself at the door and pressed the call button for Apartment 4B. The locks opened instantly; Gabriel mounted the stairs and climbed swiftly upward, his suede loafers silent upon the worn runner. Reaching the fourth-floor landing, he found the door of the apartment ajar and the unmistakable scent of Turkish tobacco on the air. He placed his fingertip against the door and gave it a gentle push, just enough to send it gliding inward on its oiled hinges.

It had been two years since he had set foot in the safe flat, yet nothing had changed: the same drab furniture, the same stained carpeting, the same blackout curtains over the windows. Adrian Carter and Uzi Navot were gazing at him curiously from their seats at the cheap dinette set, as though they had just shared a private joke they did not want him to overhear. A few seconds later, Ari Shamron came marching through the kitchen door, a cup and saucer balanced in his hand, his ugly spectacles propped on his bald head like goggles. He was wearing his usual uniform, khaki trousers and a white oxford cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Something about being back in the field always did wonders for Shamron’s appearance-even if the “field” was a comfortable apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris -and he looked fitter than he had in some time.

He paused for a moment to glare at Gabriel, then continued into the sitting room, where a cigarette was smoldering in an ashtray on the coffee table. Gabriel arrived a few seconds sooner than Shamron and hastily stabbed it out.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Shamron asked.

“You’re not supposed to be smoking.”

“How can I quit smoking when my most accomplished operative is planning to go to war with Russia?” He placed his cup and saucer on the coffee table and angrily prowled the room. “You were authorized to arrange a meeting with Elena Kharkov and, if possible, to debrief her on what she knew about her husband’s illicit arms dealing. You performed that task admirably. Indeed, your operation was in keeping with the best traditions of your service. But in the end, you vastly overstepped your authority. You had no right to discuss a break-in operation in the heart of Moscow. Nor were you authorized to enter into an agreement to secure the defection of Elena Kharkov. In fact, you had no right to even discuss the subject of defection with her.”

“What was I supposed to do, Ari? Tell her thanks but no thanks? Tell her we really weren’t interested after all in getting our hands on her husband’s most precious secrets?”

“No, Gabriel, but you could have at least consulted your superiors first.”

“There wasn’t time to consult my superiors. Ivan was tearing Saint-Tropez to pieces looking for her.”

“And what do you think he’s going to do if you take Elena and the children away from him? Raise the white flag of surrender and roll up his networks?” Shamron answered his own question with a slow shake of his bald head. “Ivan Kharkov is a powerful man with powerful friends. Even if you somehow manage to get Elena and those computer disks-and, in my humble opinion, that remains an open question- Ivan will retaliate and retaliate hard. Diplomats will be expelled en masse. Already testy political relations between Russia and the West will go into the deep freeze. And there could be financial repercussions as well-repercussions the West does not need in a time of global economic uncertainty.”

“Diplomatic sanctions? When was the last time the great Ari Shamron ever let the threat of diplomatic sanctions deter him from doing what was right?”

“More times than you’ll ever know. But I’m not concerned only with the diplomatic fallout. Ivan Kharkov has proven himself to be a man of violence and he’ll lash back at us with violence if you steal his wife and children. He has access to the most dangerous weapons systems in the world, along with nuclear, biological, and chemical agents. It doesn’t take a devious mind to concoct a scenario under which Ivan and his former KGB hoods could put those weapons in the hands of our enemies.”

“They already are,” Gabriel said. “We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“And if they sprinkle a few vials of polonium around Tel Aviv? And if a few thousand innocent people die as a result? What would you say then?”

“I would say that it’s our job to make sure that never happens. And I would remind you of your own words: that our decisions should never be based on fear but what is in the long-term security interests of the State of Israel. Surely you’re not suggesting that it isn’t in our interests to take down Ivan Kharkov? He has more blood on his hands than Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda combined. And he’s been operating his little shop of horrors with the full blessing, cooperation, and protection of the Kremlin. I say we let the Russians impose their diplomatic sanctions. And then we hit back, hard enough so that it hurts.”

Shamron stuck a cigarette into the corner of his mouth and ignited it with his old Zippo lighter. Gabriel glanced at Navot and Carter. Their eyes were averted, like accidental witnesses to a public marital spat.

“Is it your intention to personally reignite the Cold War?” Shamron blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Because that is exactly what you’re asking for.”

“The Russians have already done that. And if Ivan Kharkov wants to get in line with the rest of the psychotics who wish to do us harm, then let him.”

“Ivan will come after more than just Israel. He’ll come after you and everything you hold dear.” For Adrian Carter’s benefit, they had been speaking English. Now Shamron switched to Hebrew and lowered his voice a few decibels. “Is that really what you want at this stage of your life, my son? Another determined enemy who wishes you dead?”

“I can look after myself.”

“And what about your new wife? Can you look after her, too? Every second of every day?” Shamron gazed theatrically around the room. “Isn’t this where you brought Leah after the bombing of the Gare de Lyon?” Greeted by Gabriel’s silence, Shamron pressed his case. “The Palestinians were able to get to your wife not once but twice, Gabriel- first in Vienna, then fifteen years later at the psychiatric hospital where you’d tucked her away in England. They were good, the Palestinians, but they’re children compared to the Russians. I suggest you keep that in mind before you declare a shooting war against Ivan Kharkov.”

Shamron placed the cigarette in the ashtray, confident he had prevailed, and picked up his cup and saucer. In his large, liver-spotted hands, they looked like pieces of a child’s toy tea set.

“What about Eichmann?” Gabriel asked quietly. He had spoken in Hebrew, though at the mention of the murderer’s name Adrian Carter’s head perked up a bit, like a student roused from a slumber during a dull lecture.

“What about Eichmann?” Shamron asked stubbornly in return.

“Did you consider the diplomatic consequences before plucking him from that bus stop in Argentina?”

“Of course we did. In fact, we debated long and hard about whether or not to take him. We were afraid the world would condemn us as criminals and kidnappers. We were afraid there would be severe fallout that our young and vulnerable state wasn’t prepared to withstand.”

“But, in the end, you took that bastard down. You did it because it was the right thing to do, Ari. Because it was the just thing to do.”

“We did it because we had no other choice, Gabriel. If we’d requested extradition, the Argentines would have refused and tipped off Eichmann. And then we would have lost him forever.”

“Because the police and security services were protecting him?”

“Correct.”

“Just like the FSB and the Kremlin are protecting Ivan.”

“Ivan Kharkov isn’t Adolf Eichmann. I shouldn’t think I’d need to explain the difference to you. I lost most of my family to Eichmann and the Nazis. So did you. Your mother spent the war in Birkenau and she bore Birkenau’s scars until the day she died. You bear them now.”

“Tell that to the thousands who’ve died in the wars that have been stoked by Ivan’s guns.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Gabriel. If Ivan were to stop selling the warlords guns today, someone else would do it for him tomorrow.” Shamron lifted his hand toward Carter. “Who knows? Perhaps it will be your good friend Adrian. He and his government poured weapons into the Third World whenever it suited their needs. And we’ve been known to sell to some pretty atrocious customers ourselves.”

“Congratulations, Ari.”

“For what?”

“Achieving a new personal low,” Gabriel said. “You have just compared our country to the worst man in the world in order to win an argument.”

Gabriel could see that Shamron’s resistance was beginning to weaken. He decided to press his advantage before the old warrior could reinforce his defenses.

“I’m doing this, Ari, but I can’t do it without your support.” He paused, then added, “Or your help.”

“Who’s stooping to personal lows now?”

“I learned from the master.”

Shamron tamped out his cigarette and regarded Gabriel through the remnants of the smoke. “Have you given any thought to where you’re going to put her?”

“I was thinking about letting her move into the apartment in Narkiss Street with Chiara and me, but we really don’t have enough room for her and the children.”

Shamron, by his dour expression, let it be known he didn’t find the remark even faintly amusing. “Resettling Elena Kharkov in Israel is completely out of the question. When Russia finally permitted its Jews to immigrate to Israel, a large number of non-Jewish Russians slipped into the country with them, including several serious organized crime figures. You can be certain that any number of these fine fellow countrymen of yours would be more than willing to kill Elena on Ivan’s behalf.”

“I never contemplated keeping her in Israel, Ari. She would have to go to America.”

“Drop her in Adrian ’s lap? Is that your solution? We’re not talking about resettling some KGB colonel who’s used to living on government wages. Elena Kharkov is an extremely wealthy woman. She’s grown accustomed to a lifestyle few of us can even contemplate. She’ll become a problem. Most defectors eventually do.”

Shamron looked to Adrian Carter for affirmation, but Carter knew better than to inject himself into the middle of a family quarrel and maintained a mandarin silence. Shamron removed his glasses and absently polished them against his shirtfront.

“At the moment, the long-term emotional well-being of Elena and her children is the least of your problems. The first thing you have to do is devise some way of getting her back into Russia, alone, without Ivan becoming suspicious.”

Gabriel dropped an envelope on the coffee table.

“What’s that?” Shamron asked.

“Elena’s ticket home to Moscow.”

Shamron slipped on his spectacles and removed the letter from the envelope. He had no trouble reading it; Russian was one of his many languages. When he had finished, he inserted the letter back into the envelope, carefully, as though trying not to leave fingerprints.

“It’s not a bad start, Gabriel, but what about the rest of it? How are you going to get her into that apartment without Ivan’s private security service sounding the alarm? And how are you going to get her out of the country safely after she’s stolen those disks? And how are you going to keep Ivan occupied while you kidnap his children?”

Gabriel smiled. “We’re going to steal his airplane.”

Shamron dropped Elena’s letter on the coffee table.

“Keep talking, my son.”

It did not take long for Shamron to fall under Gabriel’s spell. He sat motionless in his chair, his hooded eyes half closed, his thick arms folded across his chest. Adrian Carter sat next to him, his face still an inscrutable blank mask. Unable to protect himself from the encroachment of Shamron’s smoke, he had decided to fill the room with some of his own and was now puffing rhythmically on a pipe that reeked of burning leaves and wet dog. Gabriel and Navot sat side by side on the couch like troubled youth. Navot was rubbing the raw spot on the bridge of his nose where Bella’s spectacles pinched him.

At the conclusion of Gabriel’s briefing, it was Carter who spoke first. He did so after banging his pipe on the edge of the ashtray, like a judge trying to bring an unruly court to order. “I’ve never regarded myself as having any particular insights into the French, but, based on our last meeting, I’m confident they’ll play ball with you.” He cast an apologetic glance at Shamron, who loathed the use of American sports metaphors when discussing sensitive operational details. “French law gives the security services wide latitude, especially when dealing with foreigners. And the French have never been adverse to bending those laws a little bit more when it suits their purposes.”

“I don’t like operating with the French services,” Shamron said. “They annoy me.”

“I volunteer to take the point on this one, Ari. Thanks to Gabriel, the French and I have something of a relationship.”

Shamron’s eyes moved to Gabriel. “I don’t suppose I have to ask who’s going to serve as Elena’s chaperone.”

“She won’t do it unless I go with her.”

“Why did I know that was going to be your answer?”

Carter was slowly reloading his pipe. “He can go in on his American passport. The Russians wouldn’t dare to touch him.”

“I suppose that depends on what sort of Russians you’re talking about, Adrian. There are all different sorts. First you have your run-of-the-mill FSB thugs like the ones Gabriel encountered in Lubyanka. Then there are the private thugs who work for people like Ivan. I doubt very much that they’ll be intimidated by a passport, even an American one.”

Shamron’s gaze moved from Carter to Gabriel.

“Do I need to remind you, Gabriel, that your friend Sergei made it clear that they knew exactly who you were and what would happen if you ever set foot in Russia again?”

“I’m just going along for the ride. It’s Elena’s show. All she has to do is walk into the House on the Embankment, grab Ivan’s files, and walk out again.”

“What could possibly go wrong with a plan like that?” Shamron asked sardonically of no one in particular. “How many of your brave associates do you intend to take along with you on this venture?”

Gabriel recited a list of names. “We can send them in as El Al crew and cabin staff. Then we’ll all fly out of Moscow together when it’s over.”

Adrian Carter was puffing on his freshly loaded pipe and nodding his head slowly. Shamron had settled once more into his Buddha-like pose and was staring at Navot, who was staring back at him in return.

“We’ll need the approval of the prime minister,” Shamron said.

“The prime minister will do whatever you tell him to do,” said Gabriel. “He always does.”

“And God help us all if we create another scandal for him.” Shamron’s gaze flickered from Navot to Gabriel and back again. “Would you boys like to handle this yourselves or would you like adult supervision? I’ve actually done this a time or two.”

“We’d love your help,” Navot said. “But are you sure Gilah won’t mind?”

“Gilah?” Shamron shrugged his shoulders. “I think Gilah could use a few days to herself. You might find this hard to believe, but I’m not the easiest person to live with.”

Gabriel and Navot immediately began to laugh. Adrian Carter bit hard on the stem of his pipe in a bid to stifle the impulse to join them, but after a few seconds he was doubled over as well. “Enjoy yourselves at my expense,” Shamron murmured. “But one day you’ll be old, too.”

49 PARIS

The serious planning began the following morning when Adrian Carter returned to the gated government guesthouse off the Avenue Victor Hugo. As Carter anticipated, the negotiations went smoothly, and by that evening the DST, the French internal security service, had taken formal control of the Kharkov watch. Gabriel’s troops, exhausted after nearly two weeks of constant duty, immediately departed for Paris -all but Dina Sarid, who remained at the villa in Gassin to serve as Gabriel’s eyes and ears in the south.

It soon became clear to the DST, and to nearly everyone else in Saint-Tropez for that matter, that a pall had descended over the Villa Soleil. There were no more parties by the vast swimming pool, no more drunken day trips aboard October, and the name “ Kharkov ” did not grace the reservation sheets of Saint-Tropez’s exclusive restaurants. Indeed, for the first three days of the French watch Ivan and Elena were not seen at all. Only the children, Anna and Nikolai, ventured beyond the villa’s walls, once to attend a carnival on the outskirts of town and a second time to visit Pampelonne Beach, where they spent two miserable hours in the company of Sonia and their sunburned Russian bodyguards before demanding to be taken home again.

Because the DST was operating on home soil, they were highly attuned to the gossip swirling through the bars and cafés. According to one rumor, Ivan was planning to put the villa up for sale and then put to sea to heal his wounded pride. According to another, he was planning to subject Elena to a Russian divorce and leave her begging for kopeks in the Moscow Metro. There was a rumor he had beaten her black-and-blue. A rumor he’d drugged her and shipped her off to Siberia. There was even a rumor he had killed her with his bare hands and dumped her body high in the Maritime Alps. All such speculation was put to rest, however, when Elena was spotted strolling along the rue Gambetta at sunset, absent any signs of physical or emotional trauma. Ivan did not accompany her, though a large contingent of bodyguards did. One DST watcher described the security detail as “presidential” in size and intensity.

At the little apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, the events in the south were taken as confirmation that the phase of the operation known as “the small lie to cover the big lie” had worked to perfection. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, the flat was by then a beehive of hushed activity. There were surveillance photos and watch reports taped to the walls, a large-scale map of Moscow with flags and stickpins and routes marked in red, and a grease board covered in Gabriel’s stylish left-handed Hebrew script. Early in the preparation, Shamron seemed content to play the role of éminence grise. But as time drew short, and his patience thin, he began to assert himself in ways that might have bred resentment in men other than Gabriel and Uzi Navot. They were like sons to Shamron and were therefore accustomed to his bellicose outbursts. They listened when other officers might have covered their ears and took advice others might have discarded for no reason other than pride. But more than anything, thought Adrian Carter, they seemed to cherish the opportunity to be in the field one more time with the legend. So did Carter himself.

For the most part, they remained prisoners of the flat, but once each day Gabriel would take Shamron outside to walk the footpaths of the Bois de Boulogne. By then, the cruelest heat of the summer had passed, and those August afternoons in Paris were soft and fine. Gabriel pleaded with Shamron not to smoke, but to no avail. Nor could he convince him to relinquish, even for a few moments, his obsession with every detail of the operation. Alone in the park, he would say things to Gabriel he dared not say in front of Navot or the other members of the team. His nagging concerns. His unanswered questions and unresolved doubts. Even his fears. On their final outing together, Shamron was moody and distracted. In the Bagatelle Gardens, he spoke words Gabriel had never heard the night before an operation, words warning of the possibility of failure.

“You must prepare yourself for the prospect she won’t come out of that building. Give her the allotted time, plus a five-minute grace period. But if she doesn’t come out, it means she’s been caught. And if she’s caught, you can be sure Arkady Medvedev and his goons will start looking for accomplices. If, heaven forbid, she falls into their hands, there’s nothing we can do for her. Don’t even think about going into that building after her. Your first responsibility is to yourself and your team.”

Gabriel walked in silence, hands in the pockets of his jeans, eyes on the move. Shamron talked on, his voice like the beating of distant drums. “Ivan and his allies in the FSB let you walk out of Russia alive once, but you can be sure it won’t happen again. Play by the Moscow Rules, and don’t forget the Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt not get caught, Gabriel, even if it means leaving Elena Kharkov behind. If she doesn’t come out of that building in time, you have to leave. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.”

Shamron stopped walking and seized Gabriel’s face in both hands with unexpected force. “I destroyed your life once, Gabriel, and I won’t allow it to happen again. If something goes wrong, get to the airport and get on that plane.”

They walked back to the apartment in silence through the fading late-afternoon light. Gabriel glanced at his wristwatch. It was nearly five o’clock. The operation was about to commence. And not even Shamron could stop it now.

50 MOSCOW

It was a few minutes after seven in Moscow when the house telephone in Svetlana Federov’s apartment on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt rattled softly. She was seated in her living room at the time, watching yet another televised speech by the Russian president, and was pleased by the interruption. She silenced him with the click of a button on her remote-God, if it were only that easy-and slowly lifted the receiver to her ear. The voice on the other end of the line was instantly familiar: Pavel, the loathsome evening concierge. It seemed she had a visitor. “A gentleman caller,” added Pavel, his voice full of insinuation.

“Does he have a name?”

“Calls himself Feliks.”

“Russian?”

“If he is, he hasn’t lived here in a long time.”

“What does he want?”

“Says he has a message. Says he’s a friend of your daughter.”

I don’t have a daughter, she thought spitefully. The woman I used to call my daughter has left me to die alone in Moscow while she cavorts around Europe with her oligarch husband. She was being overly dramatic, of course, but at her age she was entitled.

“What’s he look like?”

“A pile of old clothes. But he has flowers and chocolates. Godiva chocolates, Svetlana. Your favorite.”

“He’s not a mobster or a rapist, is he, Pavel?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“Send him up, then.”

“He’s on his way.”

“Wait, Pavel.”

“What’s wrong?”

She looked down at her shabby old housecoat.

“Ask him to wait five minutes. Then send him up.”

She hung up the phone. Flowers and chocolates… He might look like a pile of discarded laundry, but apparently he was still a gentleman.

She went into the kitchen and looked for something suitable to serve. There were no pastries or cakes in the pantry, only a tin of English tea biscuits, a souvenir from her last dreadful trip to London to see Elena. She arranged a dozen biscuits neatly on a plate and laid the plate on the sitting-room table. In the bedroom, she quickly exchanged her housecoat for a summery frock. Standing before the mirror, she coaxed her brittle gray hair into appropriate condition and stared sadly at her face. There was nothing to be done about that. Too many years, she thought. Too much heartache.

She was leaving her room when she heard the ping of the bell. Opening the door, she was greeted by the sight of an odd-looking little man in his early sixties, with a head of wispy hair and the small, quick eyes of a terrier. His clothing, as advertised, was rumpled, but appeared to have been chosen with considerable care. There was something old-fashioned about him. Something bygone. He looked as though he could have stepped from an old black-and-white movie, she thought, or from a St. Petersburg coffeehouse during the days of revolution. His manners were as dated as his appearance. His Russian, though fluent, sounded as if it had not been used in many years. He certainly wasn’t a Muscovite; in fact, she doubted whether he was a Russian at all. If someone were to put her on the spot, she would have said he was a Jew. Not that she had anything against the Jews. It was possible she was a little Jewish herself.

“I do hope I’m not catching you at an inconvenient time,” he said.

“I was just watching television. The president was making an important speech.”

“Oh, really? What was he talking about?”

“I’m not sure. They’re all the same.”

The visitor handed her the flowers and the chocolates. “I took the liberty. I know how you adore truffles.”

“How did you know that?”

“Elena told me, of course. Elena has told me a great deal about you.”

“How do you know my daughter?”

“I’m a friend, Mrs. Federov. A trusted friend.”

“She sent you here?”

“That’s correct.”

“For what reason?”

“To discuss something important with you.” He lowered his voice. “Something concerning the well-being of Elena and the children.”

“Are they in some sort of danger?”

“It would really be better if we spoke in private, Mrs. Federov. The matter is of the utmost sensitivity.”

She regarded him suspiciously for a long moment before finally stepping to one side. He moved past her without a sound, his footsteps silent on the tiled hall. Like he was floating, she thought with a shiver as she chained the door. Like a ghost.

51 GENEVA

It is said that travelers who approach Geneva by train from Zurich are frequently so overcome by its beauty that they hurl their return tickets out the window and vow never to leave again. Arriving by car from Paris, and in the middle of a lifeless August night, Gabriel felt no such compulsion. He had always found Geneva to be a charming yet intensely boring city. Once a place of Calvinistic fervor, finance was the city’s only religion now, and the bankers and moneymen were its new priests and archbishops.

His hotel, the Métropole, was near the lake, just across the street from the Jardin Anglais. The night manager, a diminutive man of immaculate dress and expressionless features, handed over an electronic key and informed him that his wife had already checked in and was upstairs awaiting his arrival. He found her seated in a wingback chair in the window, with her long legs propped on the sill and her gaze focused on the Jet d’Eau, the towering water fountain in the center of the lake. Her El Al uniform, crisp and starched, hung from the rod in the closet. Candlelight reflected softly in the silver-domed warmers of a room service table set for two. Gabriel lifted a bottle of frigid Chasselas from the ice bucket and poured himself a glass.

“I expected you an hour ago.”

“The traffic leaving Paris was miserable. What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken Kiev,” she said without a trace of irony in her voice. Her eyes were still trained on the fountain, which was now red from the colored spotlights. “The butter’s probably congealed by now.”

Gabriel placed his hand atop one of the warmers. “It’s fine. Can I pour you some wine?”

“I shouldn’t. I have a four o’clock call. I’m working the morning flight from Geneva to Ben-Gurion, then the afternoon flight from Ben-Gurion to Moscow.” She looked at him for the first time. “You know, I think it’s possible El Al flight attendants might actually get less sleep than Office agents.”

“No one gets less sleep than an Office agent.” He poured her a glass of the wine. “Have a little. They say it’s good for the heart.”

She accepted the glass and raised it in Gabriel’s direction. “Happy anniversary, darling. We were married five months ago today.” She took a drink of the wine. “So much for our honeymoon in Italy.”

“Five months isn’t really an anniversary, Chiara.”

“Of course it is, you dolt.”

She looked out at the fountain again.

“Are you angry with me because I’m late for dinner, Chiara, or is something else bothering you?”

“I’m angry with you because I don’t feel like going to Moscow tomorrow.”

“Then don’t go.”

She shot an annoyed look at him, then turned her gaze toward the lake again.

“Ari gave you numerous opportunities to extricate yourself from this affair, but you chose to press on. Usually, it’s the other way around. Usually, Shamron’s the one doing the pushing and you’re the one digging in your heels. Why now, Gabriel? After everything you’ve been through, after all the fighting and the killing, why would you prefer to do a job like this rather than hide out in a secluded villa in Umbria with me?”

“It’s not fair to put it in those terms, Chiara.”

“Of course it is. You told me it was going to be a simple job. You were going to meet with a Russian journalist in Rome, listen to what he had to say, and that was going to be the end of it.”

“It would have been the end of it, if he hadn’t been murdered.”

“So you’re doing this for Boris Ostrovsky? You’re risking your life, and Elena’s, because you feel guilty over his death?”

“I’m doing this because we need to find those missiles.”

“You’re doing this, Gabriel, because you want to destroy Ivan.”

“Of course I want to destroy Ivan.”

“Well, at least you’re being honest. Just make sure you don’t destroy yourself in the process. If you take his wife and children, he’s going to pursue them to the ends of the earth. And us, too. If we’re very lucky, this operation might be over in forty-eight hours. But your war with Ivan will just be getting started.”

“We should eat, Chiara. After all, it’s our anniversary.”

She looked at her wristwatch. “It’s too late to eat. That butter will go straight to my hips.”

“I was planning a similar maneuver myself.”

“Promises, promises.” She drank some more of the wine. “Did you enjoy working with Sarah again?”

“You’re not going to start that again, are you?”

“Let the record show, your honor, that the witness refused to answer the question.”

“Yes, Chiara, I did enjoy working with Sarah again. She performed her job admirably and with great professionalism.”

“And does she still adore you?”

“Sarah knows I’m unavailable. And the only person she adores more than me is you.”

“So you admit it?”

“Admit what?”

“That she adores you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Yes, Sarah had feelings for me once, feelings that surfaced in the middle of a very dangerous operation. I don’t happen to share those feelings because I’m quite madly in love with you. I proved that to you, I hope, by marrying you-in spectacular fashion, I might add. If memory serves, Sarah was in attendance.”

“She was probably hoping you were going to leave me stranded at the chuppah.”

“Chiara.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her mouth. Her lips were cool and tasted of the Chasselas. “This will all be over in forty-eight hours. Then we can go back to Italy, and no one, not even Ivan, will be able to find us there.”

“No one but Shamron.” She kissed him again. “I thought you were planning a maneuver that had something to do with my hips.”

“You have a very long day tomorrow.”

“Put the table outside in the hall, Gabriel. I can’t make love in a room that smells like Chicken Kiev.”

Afterward, she slept in his arms, her body restless, her mind troubled by dreams. Gabriel did not sleep; Gabriel never slept the night before an operation. At 3:59, he called the front desk to say a wake-up call would not be necessary, and gently woke Chiara with kisses on the back of her neck. She made love to him one final time, pleading with him throughout to send someone else to Moscow in his place. At five o’clock, she left the room in her crisp El Al uniform and headed downstairs to the lobby, where Rimona and Yaakov were waiting along with the rest of the crew. Gabriel watched from his window as they climbed into a shuttle bus for the ride to the airport and remained there long after they had gone. His gaze was focused on the storm clouds gathering over the distant mountain peaks. His thoughts, however, were elsewhere. He was thinking of an old woman in a Moscow apartment reaching for a telephone, with Eli Lavon, the man she knew only as Feliks, calmly reminding her of her lines.

52 VILLA SOLEIL, FRANCE

They had arrived at an uneasy truce. It had taken seventy-two hours. Seventy-two hours of screaming. Seventy-two hours of threats of malicious divorce. Seventy-two hours of on-and-off interrogation. Like all those who have been betrayed, he demanded to be told the details. She had resisted at first, but under Ivan’s withering assault she had eventually surrendered. She paid the information out slowly, inch by inch. The drive into the hills. The lunch that had been waiting on the table. The wine. The little bedroom with its tacky Monet prints. Her baptismal shower. Ivan had demanded to know how many times they had made love. “Twice,” she confessed. “He wanted to do it a third time but I told him I had to be going.”

Mikhail’s predictions had proven accurate; Ivan’s rage, while immense, had subsided quickly once he realized he had brought the mess upon himself. He sent a team of bodyguards to Cannes to eject Yekatarina from her suite at the Carlton Hotel, then began to deluge Elena with apologies, promises, diamonds, and gold. Elena appeared to accept the acts of contrition and made several of her own. The matter was now closed, they declared jointly over dinner at Villa Romana. Life could resume as normal.

Many of Ivan’s gestures were surely hollow. Many others were not. He spent less time talking on his mobile phone and more time with the children. He kept his Russian friends at bay and canceled a large birthday party he had been planning to throw for a business associate whom Elena did not like. He brought her coffee each morning and read the papers in bed instead of rushing into his office to work. And when her mother called that morning at seven o’clock, he did not grimace the way he usually did but handed Elena the phone with genuine concern on his face. The conversation that followed was brief. Elena hung up the phone and looked at Ivan in distress.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

"She’s very sick again, darling. She needs me to come right away.”

In Moscow, Svetlana Federov gently returned the receiver to its cradle and looked at the man she knew as Feliks.

"She says she’ll be here later this evening.”

"And Ivan?”

“He wanted to come with her, but Elena convinced him to stay in France with the children. He was kind enough to let her borrow his airplane.”

“Did she happen to say what time she was departing?”

“She’s leaving Nice airport at eleven o’clock, provided there are no problems with the plane, of course.”

He smiled and withdrew a small device from the breast pocket of his rumpled jacket. It had a tiny screen and lots of buttons, like a miniature typewriter. Svetlana Federov had seen such devices before. She did not know what they were called, only that they were usually carried by the sort of men she did not like. He typed something rapidly with his agile little thumbs and returned the device to his pocket. Then he looked at his watch.

“Knowing your son-in-law, he’ll have you and your building under surveillance within the hour. Do you remember what you’re supposed to say if anyone asks about me?”

“I’m to tell them that you were a con artist-a thief who had come to swindle an old woman out of her money.”

“There really are a lot of unscrupulous characters in the world.”

“Yes,” she said. “One can never be too careful.”

In the aftermath of the most recent terrorist attacks in London, many improvements in security and operational capabilities had been made to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, some the public could see, many others they could not. Among those that fell into the second category was a sparkling new operations center, located in a bunkerlike annex beneath the square itself. At precisely 6:04 A.M. London time, Eli Lavon’s message was handed to Adrian Carter with funereal silence by a young CIA factotum. Carter, after reading it, handed it to Shamron, who in turn handed it to Graham Seymour. “Looks like we’re on,” said Seymour. “I suppose you’d better cue the Frogs.”

Carter activated a secure line to Paris with the press of a button and brought the receiver to his ear. “Bonjour, gentlemen. The ball is now heading toward your side of the court. Do try to enjoy yourselves.”

This time there was no indecision in her grooming. Elena bathed hastily, expended little effort on her hair and makeup, and dressed in a rather simple but comfortable Chanel pantsuit. She put on more jewelry than she might otherwise have worn on such an occasion and slipped several more expensive pieces into her handbag. Finally, she placed two additional changes of clothing in an overnight bag and took several thousand dollars’ worth of euros and rubles from the wall safe. She knew that Ivan would not find this suspicious; Ivan always encouraged her to carry a substantial amount of cash when traveling alone.

She took a final look around the room and started downstairs with as much detachment as she could summon. Sonia and the children had gathered to see her off; she held the children for longer than she should have and ordered them with mock sternness to behave for their father. Ivan was not a witness to their farewell; he was standing outside in the drive, scowling impatiently at his wristwatch. Elena kissed each child one final time, then climbed into the back of the Mercedes with Ivan. She glanced once over her shoulder as the car shot forward and saw the children weeping hysterically. Then the car passed through the security gate and they disappeared from sight.

Word of Ivan and Elena Kharkov’s departure from Villa Soleil arrived at the operations room in London at 7:13 A.M. local time. Gabriel was informed of the development five minutes later. One hour after receiving the message, he informed the front desk that he was checking out of his room and that his stay, while far too brief, had been lovely. His rented Renault was waiting for him by the time he stepped outside. He climbed behind the wheel and headed for the airport.

53 NICE, FRANCE

Ivan was preoccupied during the drive, and for that Elena was grateful. He passed the journey alternately talking on his mobile or staring silently out his window, his thick fingers drumming on the center console. Because they were moving against the morning beach traffic, they proceeded without delay: around the Golfe de Saint-Tropez to Saint-Maxime, inland on the D25 to the autoroute, then eastward on the autoroute toward Nice. As they sped through the northern fringes of Cannes, Elena found herself thinking about Ivan and Yekatarina making love in their suite at the Carlton. Ivan must have been thinking the same thing, because he took hold of her hand and said he was sorry for everything that had happened. Elena heard herself say she was sorry, too. Then she looked out her window at the hills rising toward the Alps and began counting the minutes until she would be free of him.

The exit for the Côte d’Azur International Airport appeared fifteen minutes later. By then, Ivan had received another phone call and was engaged in a heated conversation with an associate in London. He was still on the phone, five minutes later, as they walked into the air-conditioned office of Riviera Flight Services, the airport’s fixed base operator. Standing behind the pristine white counter was a man in his mid-thirties with receding blond hair. He wore navy blue trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt with epaulets. Ivan kept him waiting another two minutes while he concluded the call to London. “ Kharkov,” he said finally. “Leaving for Moscow at eleven.”

The young man hoisted a bureaucrat’s troubled smile. “That’s not going to be possible, Monsieur Kharkov. I’m afraid there’s a rather serious problem with your aircraft.”

Elena dug a fingernail into her palm and looked down at her shoes.

"What sort of problem?” asked Ivan.

"A paperwork problem,” answered the young man. “Your crew has been unable to produce two very important documents: an RVSM authorization letter and a Stage Three certificate. The DGAC will not allow your plane to depart without them.”

The DGAC was the Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile, the French equivalent of the Federal Aviation Administration.

“This is outrageous!” snapped Ivan. “I’ve taken off from this airport dozens of times in that same aircraft and I’ve never been required to produce those documents before.”

“I understand your frustration, Monsieur Kharkov, but I’m afraid rules are rules. Unless your crew can produce an RVSM authorization and Stage Three certificate, your aircraft isn’t going anywhere.”

“Is there some sort of fine I can pay?”

“Perhaps eventually, but not now.”

“I want to speak to your superior.”

“I’m the most senior man on duty.”

“Get someone from the DGAC on the phone.”

“The DGAC has made its position clear on this matter. They will have nothing further to say until they see those documents.”

“We have an emergency in Moscow. My wife’s mother is very ill. She has to get there right away.”

“Then I would suggest that your crew do their utmost to find those documents. In the meantime, your wife might consider flying commercial. ”

“Commercial?” Ivan brought his palm down on the counter. “My wife can’t fly commercial. We have security issues to consider. It’s simply not possible.”

“Then I doubt very much that she’ll be going to Moscow today, Monsieur.”

Elena moved cautiously to the counter. “My mother is expecting me, Ivan. I can’t disappoint her. I’ll just fly commercial.”

The clerk gestured toward his computer. “I can check departure times and seat availability, if you would like.”

Ivan frowned, then nodded his head. The clerk sat down at the computer and punched a few keys. A moment later, he pulled his lips downward into a frown and shook his head slowly.

“I’m afraid there are no seats available on any direct flights between Nice and Moscow today. As you probably know, Monsieur Kharkov, we have many Russian visitors this time of year.” He tapped a few more keys. “But there is one other option.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a Swiss International Air Lines flight departing in an hour for Geneva. Assuming it arrives on time, Madame Kharkov can then catch the two P.M. Swissair flight from Geneva to Moscow. It’s scheduled to arrive at Sheremetyevo at eight o’clock this evening.”

Ivan looked at Elena. “It’s a very long travel day. Why don’t you wait until I get the paperwork straightened out?”

“I’ve already told my mother I was coming tonight. I don’t want to disappoint her, darling. You heard her voice.”

Ivan looked at the clerk. “I need three first-class seats: one for my wife and two for her bodyguards.”

A few more taps at the keyboard. Another slow shake of the head.

“There’s only one first-class seat available on each flight and nothing in economy. But I can assure you Madame Kharkov will be perfectly safe. If you would prefer, I can arrange a VIP escort with airport security.”

“Which terminal does Swissair depart from?”

“Terminal One.” The clerk picked up the telephone. “I’ll let them know you’re on the way.”

The young man behind the counter did not work for Riviera Flight Services but was in fact a junior case officer employed by the French internal security service. As for the telephone call he placed after Ivan and Elena’s departure, it was not to the offices of Swissair but to his superior, who was sitting in the back of an ersatz service van just outside. Upon receiving the call, the officer in the van alerted regional headquarters in Nice, which, in turn, flashed word to the operations room in London. The news arrived on Gabriel’s PDA while he was pretending to look at Rolex watches in an airport duty-free shop. He left the shop empty-handed and wandered slowly toward his gate.

Elena tried to leave him at the curb, but Ivan, in a sudden rush of gallantry, would hear none of it. He stood with her on the endless line at the ticket counter and argued with the poor agent over the details of her itinerary. He bought a small gift for her mother, and made Elena swear to call him the minute she landed in Moscow. And finally, as Elena was preparing to pass through security, he apologized once again for the damage he had done to their marriage. She kissed him one final time and, upon reaching the other side, turned to wave good-bye. Ivan was already walking away, bodyguards at his side, telephone pressed to his ear.

For the next half hour, she reveled in the mundane. She located her gate. She drank a café crème at a crowded bar. She bought a stack of newspapers and magazines. But mainly she just walked. For the first time in many years, Elena was alone. Not truly alone, she thought, for surely someone was watching her, but free of the cloying presence of Ivan’s bodyguards, at least for a few hours. Soon she would be free of them forever. She just had to run one small errand in Moscow first. She couldn’t help but smile at the irony of it. She had to go to Russia to set herself free. She did this not only for herself, she thought, but for her country. She was Russia ’s conscience. Russia ’s savior.

Nervous about missing her flight, she presented herself at the gate ten minutes earlier than necessary and waited patiently for the command to board. Her seatmate was a sunburned Swiss gnome, who passed the short flight frowning at numbers. Lunch was a wilted sandwich and a bottle of warm mineral water; Elena ate everything on her tray and thanked the bewildered air hostess profusely for her kind service.

It was nearly 1:30 by the time the plane touched down in Geneva. Stepping from the Jetway, she heard an announcement saying that Swissair Flight 1338 to Moscow was in final boarding. She arrived at her next gate with five minutes to spare and accepted a glass of champagne from the chief bursar as she settled into her first-class seat. This time her seatmate was a man in his mid-fifties with thick gray hair and the tinted eyeglasses of someone who suffered from light sensitivity. He was writing in a leather portfolio as she sat down and seemed to take no notice of her. As the plane was climbing rapidly over the Alps, he tore a single sheet of paper from the portfolio and placed it on her lap. It was a tiny pen-and-ink copy of Two Children on a Beach by Mary Cassatt. Elena turned and looked at him in disbelief.

“Good afternoon, Elena,” said Gabriel. “It’s so good to see you again.”

54 MOSCOW

Arkady Medvedev’s was a uniquely Russian story. A former breaker of dissident heads from the Fifth Main Directorate of the KGB, he had been going to seed in the shattered remnants of his former service when, in 1994, he received a telephone call from an old underling named Ivan Kharkov. Ivan had a proposition: he wanted Medvedev to construct and oversee a private security service to protect his family and his burgeoning global financial empire. Medvedev accepted the offer without bothering to ask the salary. He knew enough about business in the newly capitalistic Russia to realize that a salary-at least the one listed on an employment contract-didn’t much matter.

For fifteen years, Arkady Medvedev had served Ivan well, and Ivan had been more than generous in return. Arkady Medvedev’s base earnings now stood at more than one million dollars a year, not bad for a former secret policeman who hadn’t had two rubles to rub together after the fall of communism. But the money was only part of his compensation package. There was a generous expense account and clothing allowance. There was a Bentley automobile, apartments in London, the South of France, and the exclusive Sparrow Hills of Moscow. And then there were the women-women like Oxana, a twenty-three-year-old beauty from the provinces whom Medvedev had plucked from a sushi bar two weeks earlier. She had been living at his apartment ever since, in varying states of undress.

If there was one drawback to working for Ivan, it was his knack for telephoning at the absolutely worst moments. True to form, the call came just as Medvedev and Oxana were about to jointly scale a summit of pleasure. Medvedev reached for the phone, bathed in sweat, and brought the receiver reluctantly to his ear. The conversation that followed, though brief, thoroughly spoiled the mood. When the call was over, Oxana resumed where she had left off, but for Medvedev it was no good. She finally collapsed forward onto his chest and sunk her teeth into his ear in frustration.

“You’re tired of me already?”

“Of course not.”

“So what’s the problem, Arkady?”

The problem, he thought, was Elena Kharkov. She was arriving in Moscow that evening for an emergency visit. Ivan was suspicious about her motives. Ivan wanted her under full-time watch. Ivan wanted no more stunts like the one in Saint-Tropez. And neither did Arkady Medvedev. He looked at Oxana and told her to get dressed. Five minutes later, as she was slipping out of his apartment, he snatched up the phone again and started moving his teams into place.

Elena ordered white wine; Gabriel, black coffee. They both decided to try the ravioli with wild mushroom reduction. Elena took a single bite and nibbled on her bread instead.

“You don’t like the food?” Gabriel asked.

“It’s not very good.”

“It’s actually much better than the usual fare. When was the last time you flew commercial?”

“It’s been a while.” She gazed out the window. “I suppose I’m a little like Russia itself. I went from having almost nothing to having almost everything. We Russians lurch from one extreme to the other. We never seem to get it just right.”

She turned and looked at him.

“May I speak honestly without hurting your feelings?”

“If you must.”

“You look quite ridiculous in that disguise. I like you much better with your short hair. And those glasses…” She shook her head. “They’re atrocious. You shouldn’t wear tinted lenses. They hide the color of your eyes.”

“I’m afraid that’s the point, Elena.”

She brushed a strand of hair from her face and asked where she was to be hidden after the defection. Her tone was casual, as though she were making polite conversation with a complete stranger. Gabriel answered in the same manner.

“On Sunday night, instead of boarding your flight back to Geneva and Nice, you’re going to board a plane to Tel Aviv. Your stay in Israel will be brief, a day or two at most.”

“And then?”

“The Americans have assumed responsibility for your resettlement. It’s a bigger country with far more places to hide than Israel. The man who is in charge of the case is a friend of mine. I’d trust him with my life, Elena, and I know he’ll take very good care of you and the children. But I’m afraid it won’t be anything like the lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed.”

“Thank God for that.”

“You might think that now, but it’s going to be a rude awakening. You should anticipate that Ivan will file for divorce in a Russian court. Because you won’t be able to appear to contest the case, he’ll be able to divorce you in absentia and leave you and the children penniless.” He paused. “Unless we can lay our hands on a bit of his money in the next two days.”

“I don’t want any of Ivan’s money. It’s blood money.”

“Then do it for your children, Elena.”

She looked at the sketch he had given her-the two children on a beach. “I have access to joint accounts in London and Moscow,” she said softly. “But if I make any large withdrawals, Ivan will know about it.”

“He didn’t salt away any funds in Switzerland for a rainy day?”

“There’s a safe-deposit box in Zurich where he usually keeps a couple of million in cash. You would have to empty it out for me before Ivan has a chance to put a freeze on it.”

“Do you know the number and password?”

She nodded her head.

“Give them to me, Elena-for the children.”

She recited them slowly, then looked at him curiously.

“Don’t you want to write them down?”

“It’s not necessary.”

“You have a spy’s memory, just like Ivan.”

She picked at her food without appetite.

“I must say, your performance today was quite extraordinary. You should have seen Ivan’s face when he was informed his plane couldn’t take off.” She looked at him. “I assume you have the next act well choreographed, too?”

“We do, but all the choreography in the world isn’t worth a damn if the performer can’t pull it off.” A pause. “Last chance to bow out, Elena. And no hard feelings if you do.”

“I’m going to finish what I started,” she said. “For Aleksandr Lubin. For Boris Ostrovsky. And for Olga.”

Gabriel signaled the flight attendant and asked her to remove their food. Then he placed his briefcase on the tray table and opened the combination locks. He removed four items: a small plastic spray bottle, a device that looked like an ordinary MP3 player, a second rectangular device with a short USB connector cord, and a boarding pass for El Al Flight 1612, departing Moscow for Tel Aviv at 6:15 P.M. on Sunday.

“As you can probably tell by now, Elena, timing is everything. We’ve put together a schedule for your final hours in Moscow and it is important you adhere to it rigorously. Pay close attention to everything I tell you. We have a lot of ground to cover and very little time.”

The flight touched down at Sheremetyevo punctually at 8:05 P.M. Elena left the plane first and walked a few paces ahead through the terminal, with her handbag over her left shoulder and her overnight bag rolling along the cracked floor at her side. Arriving at passport control, Gabriel joined a line for unwanted foreigners, and by the time he was finally admitted into the country Elena was gone. Outside the terminal, he joined another endless line, this one for a taxi. He eventually climbed into the back of a rattling Lada, driven by a juvenile in mirrored sunglasses. Uzi Navot climbed into the car behind him.

“Where are you going?” asked Gabriel’s driver.

“Ritz-Carlton Hotel.”

“Your first time in Moscow?”

“Yes.”

“Some music?”

“No, I have a terrible headache.”

“How about a girl instead?”

“The hotel would be just fine, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Are you sure you can drive?”

“No problem.”

“Is this car actually going to make it to the Ritz?”

“No problem.”

“It’s getting dark out. Are you sure you need those sunglasses?”

“They make me look like I have money. Everyone with money in Moscow wears sunglasses at night.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“It’s true.”

“Can this car go any faster? I’d like to get to the Ritz sometime tonight.”

"No problem.”

Word of Gabriel and Elena’s arrival in Moscow reached the operations center in Grosvenor Square at 6:19 P.M. local time. Graham Seymour stood up from his chair and rubbed the kinks out of his lower back.

“Nothing more to be done from here tonight. What say we adjourn to the Grill Room of the Dorchester for a celebratory supper? My service is buying.”

“I don’t believe in mid-operation celebrations,” Shamron said. “Especially when I have three of my best operatives on the ground in Moscow and three more on the way.”

Carter placed a hand on Shamron’s shoulder. “Come on, Ari. There’s nothing you can do now except sit there all night and worry yourself to death.”

“Which is exactly what I intend to do.”

Carter frowned and looked at Graham Seymour. “We can’t leave him here alone. He’s barely housebroken.”

“How would you feel about Indian takeaway?”

“Tell them to take it easy on the spices. My stomach isn’t what it used to be.”

55 MOSCOW

With just one week remaining until election day, there was no escaping the face of the Russian president. It hung from every signpost and government building in the city center. It stared from the front pages of every Kremlin-friendly newspaper and flashed across the newscasts of the Kremlin-controlled television networks. It was carried aloft by roving bands of Unity Party Youth and floated godlike over the city on the side of a hot-air balloon. The president himself acted as though he were waging a real election campaign rather than a carefully scripted folly. He spent the morning campaigning in a Potemkin village in the countryside before returning to Moscow for a massive afternoon rally at Dinamo Stadium. It was, according to Radio Moscow, the largest political rally in modern Russian history.

The Kremlin had allowed two other candidates the privilege of contesting the election, but most Russians could not recall their names, and even the foreign press had long ago stopped covering them. The Coalition for a Free Russia, the only real organized opposition force in the country, had no candidate but plenty of courage. As the president was addressing the throng in Dinamo Stadium, they gathered in Arbat Square for a counterrally. By the time the police and their plainclothes helpers had finished with them, one hundred members of Free Russia were in custody and another hundred were in the hospital. Evidence of the bloody melee was still strewn about the square late that afternoon as Gabriel, dressed in a dark corduroy flat cap and Barbour raincoat, headed down the Boulevard Ring toward the river.

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior rose before him, its five golden onion domes dull against the heavy gray sky. The original cathedral had been dynamited by Kaganovich in 1931 on orders from Stalin, supposedly because it blocked the view from the windows of his Kremlin apartment. In its place the Bolsheviks had attempted to erect a massive government skyscraper called the Palace of Soviets, but the riverside soil proved unsuitable for such a building and the construction site flooded repeatedly. Eventually, Stalin and his engineers surrendered to the inevitable and turned the land into a public swimming pool-the world’s largest, of course.

Rebuilt after the fall of communism at enormous public expense, the cathedral was now one of Moscow ’s most popular tourist attractions. Gabriel decided to skip it and made his way directly to the river instead. Three men were standing separately along the embankment, gazing across the water toward a vast apartment building with a Mercedes-Benz star revolving slowly atop the roof. Gabriel walked past them without a word. One by one, the men turned and followed after him.

Upon closer inspection, it was not a single building but three: a massive trapezium facing the riverfront, with two L-shaped appendages running several hundred yards inland. On the opposite side of Serafimovicha Street was a melancholy patch of brown grass and wilted trees known as Bolotnaya Square. Gabriel was seated on a nearby bench next to a fountain when Uzi Navot, Yaakov Rossman, and Eli Lavon came over the bridge. Navot sat next to him, while Lavon and Yaakov went to the edge of the fountain. Lavon was chattering away in Russian like a movie extra in a cocktail party scene. Yaakov was looking at the ground and smoking a cigarette.

“When did Yaakov take up smoking again?” asked Gabriel.

“Last night. He’s nervous.”

“He’s spent his career operating in the West Bank and Gaza and he’s nervous being in Moscow?”

“You’re damn right he’s nervous being in Moscow. And you would be, too, if you had any sense.”

“How’s our local station chief?”

“He looks a little better than Yaakov, but not much. Let’s just say he’ll be quite happy when we get on that plane tomorrow night and get out of town.”

“How many cars was he able to come up with?”

“Four, just like you wanted-three old Ladas and a Volga.”

“Please tell me they run, Uzi. The last thing we need is for the cars to break down tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, Gabriel. They run just fine.”

“Where did he get them?”

“The station picked up a small fleet of old Soviet cars and trucks for a song after the fall of communism and put them on ice. All the papers are in order.”

“And the drivers?”

“Four field hands from Moscow Station. They all speak Russian.”

“What time do we start leaving the hotel?”

“I go first at two-fifty. Eli goes five minutes after that. Then Yaakov five minutes later. You’re the last to leave.”

“It’s not much time, Uzi.”

“It’s plenty of time. If we get here too early, we might attract unwanted attention. And that’s the last thing we want.”

Gabriel didn’t argue. Instead, he peppered Navot with a series of questions about cell phone jammers, watch assignments, and, finally, the situation at the apartment house on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt where Elena was now staying with her mother. Navot’s answer did not surprise him.

“Arkady Medvedev has placed the building under round-the-clock surveillance.”

“How’s he doing it?”

“Nothing too technical. Just a man in a car outside in the street.”

“How often is he changing the watcher?”

“Every four hours.”

“Does he change the car or just the man?”

“Just the man. The car stays in place.”

Gabriel adjusted his tinted eyeglasses. His gray wig was making his scalp itch terribly. Navot was rubbing a sore patch above his elbow. He always seemed to develop some small physical malady whenever he was anxious about an operation.

“We should assume that Arkady has instructed the watchers to follow Elena wherever she goes, including tomorrow afternoon when she leaves for the airport. If the watcher sees her making an unannounced detour to the House on the Embankment, he’ll tell Arkady. And Arkady is bound to be suspicious. Do you see my point, Gabriel?”

“Yes, Uzi,” Gabriel said pedantically. “I believe I do. We have to make sure the watcher doesn’t follow her tomorrow or all our work could go up in flames in a Moscow minute.”

“I suppose we could kill him.”

“A minor traffic accident should suffice.”

“Shall I tell the station chief that we need another Lada?”

“What kind of car are the watchers using?”

"An S-Class Mercedes.”

“That’s not really a fair fight, is it?”

“Not really.”

“We’d better make it an official car, then. Something that can take a punch. Tell the station chief we want to borrow the ambassador’s limo. Come to think of it, tell him we want the ambassador, too. He’s really quite good, you know.”

Elena Kharkov had left her mother’s apartment just one time that day, a fact that Arkady Medvedev and his watchers found neither alarming nor even the slightest bit noteworthy. The outing had been brief: a quick drive to a glittering new gourmet market up the street, where, accompanied by two of her bodyguards, she had purchased the ingredients for a summer borscht. She had spent the remainder of the afternoon in the kitchen with her mother, playfully bickering over recipes, the way they always had done when Elena was young.

By evening, the soup had chilled sufficiently to eat. Mother and daughter sat together at the dining-room table, a candle and a loaf of black bread between them, images of the president’s rally in Dinamo Stadium playing silently on the television in the next room. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since Elena’s arrival in Moscow, yet her mother had assiduously avoided any discussion of the reason behind the unorthodox visit. She broached the topic now for the first time, not with words but by gently laying Elena’s letter upon the table. Elena looked at it a moment, then resumed eating.

“You’re in trouble, my love.”

“No, Mama.”

“Who was the man you sent to deliver this letter?”

“He’s a friend. Someone who’s helping me.”

“Helping you with what?”

Elena was silent.

“You’re leaving your husband?”

“Yes, Mama, I’m leaving my husband.”

“Has he hurt you?”

“Badly.”

“Did he hit you?”

“No, never.”

“Is there another woman?”

Elena nodded, eyes on her food. “She’s just a child of nineteen. I’m sure Ivan will hurt her one day, too.”

“You should have never married him. I begged you not to marry him, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“I know.”

“He’s a monster. His father was a monster and he’s a monster.”

“I know.” Elena tried to eat some of the soup but had lost her appetite. “I’m sorry the children and I haven’t been spending more time with you the last few years. Ivan wouldn’t let us. It’s no excuse. I should have stood up to him.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Elena. I know more than you think I know.”

A tear spilled onto Elena’s cheek. She brushed it away before her mother could see it. “I’m very sorry for the way I’ve behaved toward you. I hope you can forgive me.”

“I forgive you, Elena. But I don’t understand why you came to Moscow like this.”

“I have to take care of some business before I leave Ivan. I have to protect myself and the children.”

“You’re not thinking about taking his money?”

“This has nothing to do with money.”

Her mother didn’t press the issue. She was a Party wife. She knew about secrets and walls.

“When are you planning to tell him?”

“Tomorrow night.” Elena paused, then added pointedly: “When I return to France.”

“Your husband isn’t the sort of man who takes bad news well.”

“No one knows that better than I do.”

“Where are you planning to go?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Will you stay in Europe or will you come home to Russia?”

“It might not be safe for me in Russia anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I might have to take the children someplace where Ivan can’t find them. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

The Party wife understood perfectly. “Am I ever going to see them again, Elena? Am I ever going to see my grandchildren again?”

“It might take some time. But, yes, you’ll be able to see them again.”

“Time? How much time? Look at me, Elena. Time is not something I have in abundance.”

“I’ve left some money in the bottom drawer of your dresser. It’s all the money I have in the world right now.”

“Then I can’t take it.”

“Trust me, Mama. You have to take that money.”

Her mother looked down and tried to eat, but now she, too, had lost her appetite. And so they sat there for a long time, clutching each other’s hands across the table, faces wet with tears. Finally, her mother picked up the letter and touched it to the flame. Elena gazed at the television and saw Russia ’s new tsar accepting the adulation of the masses. We cannot live as normal people, she thought. And we never will.

Against all his considered judgment and in violation of all operational doctrine, written and unwritten, Gabriel did not immediately return to his room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Instead, he wandered farther south, to the colony of apartment houses looming over October Square, and made his way to the building known to the locals as the House of Dogs. It had no view of the Moscow River or the Kremlin-only of its identical neighbor, and of a parking lot filled with shabby little cars, and of the Garden Ring, a euphemism if there ever was one, which thundered night and day on its northern flank. A biting wind was blowing out of the north, a reminder that the Russian “summer” had come and gone and that soon it would be winter again. The poet in him thought it appropriate. Perhaps there never had been a summer at all, he thought. Perhaps it had been an illusion, like the dream of Russian democracy.

In the small courtyard outside Entrance C, it appeared that the babushkas and the skateboard punks had declared a cessation of hostilities. Six skinny Militia boys were milling about in the doorway itself, watched over by two plainclothes FSB toughs in leather jackets. The Western reporters who had gathered at the building after the attempt on Olga Sukhova’s life had given up their vigil or, more likely, had been chased away. Indeed, there was no evidence of support for Olga’s cause, other than two desperate words, written in red spray paint, on the side of the building: FREE OLGA! A local wit had crossed out the word FREE and replaced it with FUCK. And who said the Russians didn’t have a sense of humor?

Gabriel walked around the enormous building and, as expected, found security men standing watch at the other five entrances as well. Hiking north along the Leninsky Prospekt, he ran through the operation one final time. It was perfect, he thought. With one glaring exception. When Ivan Kharkov discovered his family and his secret papers had been stolen, he was going to take it out on someone. And that someone was likely to be Olga Sukhova.

56 SAINT-TROPEZ, MOSCOW

The undoing of Ivan Borisovich Kharkov, real estate developer, venture capitalist, and international arms trafficker, began with a phone call. It was placed to his Saint-Tropez residence by one François Boisson, regional director of the Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile, the French aviation authority. It appeared, said Monsieur Boisson, that there was a rather serious problem regarding recent flights by Monsieur Kharkov’s airplane-problems, the director said ominously, that could not be discussed over the telephone. He then instructed Monsieur Kharkov to appear at Nice airport at one that afternoon to answer a few simple questions. If Monsieur Kharkov chose not to appear, his plane would be confiscated and held for a period of at least ninety days. After an anti-French tirade lasting precisely one minute and thirty-seven seconds, Ivan promised to come at the appointed hour. Monsieur Boisson said he looked forward to the meeting and rang off.

Elena Kharkov learned of her husband’s predicament when she telephoned Villa Soleil to wish Ivan and the children a pleasant morning. Confronted with Ivan’s rage, she made a few soothing comments and assured him it had to be a misunderstanding of some sort. She then had a brief conversation with Sonia, during which she instructed the nanny to take the children to the beach. When Sonia asked whether Elena needed to speak to Ivan again, Elena hesitated, then said that, yes, she did need to speak to him. When Ivan came back on the line, she told him that she loved him very much and was looking forward to seeing him that night. But Ivan was still carrying on about his airplane and the incompetence of the French. Elena murmured, “Dos vidanya, Ivan,” and severed the connection.

Gabriel was a man of unnatural patience, but now, during the final tedious hours before their assault on Ivan’s vault of secrets, his patience abandoned him. It was fear, he thought. The kind of fear only Moscow can produce. The fear that someone was always watching. Always listening. The fear that he might find himself in Lubyanka once again and that this time he might not come out alive. The fear that others might join him there and suffer the same fate.

He attempted to suppress his fear with activity. He walked streets he loathed, ordered an elaborate lunch he barely touched, and, in the glittering GUM shopping mall near Red Square, purchased souvenirs he would leave behind. He performed these tasks alone; apparently, the FSB had no interest in Martin Stonehill, naturalized American citizen of Hamburg, Germany.

Finally, at 2:30 P.M., he returned to his room at the Ritz-Carlton and dressed for combat. His only weapons were a miniature radio and a PDA. At precisely 3:03 P.M., he boarded an elevator and rode down to the lobby. He paused briefly at the concierge’s desk to collect a handful of brochures and maps, then came whirling out the revolving door into Tverskaya Street. After walking a half block, he stopped and thrust his hand toward the street, as if hailing a taxi. A silver Volga sedan immediately pulled to the curb. Gabriel climbed inside and closed the door.

“Shalom,” said the man behind the wheel.

“Let’s hope so.”

Gabriel looked at his watch as the car shot forward: 3:06…

Time for one last good-bye, Elena. Time to get in the car.

Elena Kharkov slipped quietly into the guest bedroom and began to pack. The mere act of folding her clothing and placing it into her bag did much to calm her raw nerves and so she performed this chore with far more care than was warranted. At 3:20, she dialed the number of Sonia’s mobile phone. Receiving no answer, she was nearly overcome by a wave of panic. She dialed the number a second time- slowly, deliberately-and this time Sonia answered after three rings. In the most placid voice Elena could summon, she informed Sonia the children had had enough sun and that it was time to leave the beach. Sonia offered mild protest-the children, she said, were the happiest they had been in many days-but Elena insisted. When the call was over, she switched on the device that looked like an ordinary MP3 player and placed it in the outer compartment of her overnight bag. Then she dialed Sonia’s number again. This time, the call wouldn’t go through.

She finished packing and slipped into her mother’s bedroom. The money was where she had left it, in the bottom of the dresser, concealed beneath a heavy woolen sweater. She closed the drawer silently and went into the sitting room. Her mother looked at Elena and attempted to smile. They had nothing more to say-they had said it all last night-and no more tears to cry.

“You’ll have some tea before you leave?”

“No, Mama. There isn’t time.”

“Go, then,” she said. “And may the angel of the Lord be looking over your shoulder.”

A bodyguard, a former Alpha Group operative named Luka Osipo, was waiting for Elena outside in the corridor. He carried her suitcase downstairs and placed it in the trunk of a waiting limousine. As the car pulled away from the curb, Elena announced calmly that she needed to make a brief stop at the House on the Embankment to collect some papers from her husband’s office. “I’ll just be a moment or two,” she said. “We’ll still have plenty of time to get to Sheremetyevo in time for my flight.”

As Elena Kharkov’s limousine sped along the Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a second car was following carefully after it. Behind the wheel was a man named Anton Ulyanov. A former government surveillance specialist, he now worked for Arkady Medvedev, chief of Ivan Kharkov’s private security service. Ulyanov had performed countless jobs for Medvedev, most of questionable ethics, but never had he been ordered to watch the wife of the man who paid his salary. He did not know why he had been given this assignment, only that it was important. Follow her all the way to the airport, Medvedev had told him. And don’t lose sight of her. If you do, you’ll wish you’d never been born.

Ulyanov settled fifty yards behind the limousine and switched on some music. Nothing to do now but make himself comfortable and take a nice, boring drive to Sheremetyevo. Those were the kind of jobs he liked best: the boring jobs. Leave the excitement to the heroes, he was fond of saying. One tended to live longer that way.

As it turned out, the journey would be neither long nor boring. Indeed, it would end at the Ukraina Hotel. The offending car came from Ulyanov’s right, though later he would be forced to admit he never saw it. He was able to recall the moment of impact, though: a violent collision of buckling steel and shattering glass that sent his air bag exploding into his face. How long he was unconscious was never clear to him. He reckoned it was only a few seconds, because his first memory of the aftermath was the vision of a well-dressed man yelling through a blown-out window in a language he did not understand.

Anton Ulyanov did not try to communicate with the man. Instead, he began a desperate search for his mobile phone. He found it a moment later, wedged between the passenger seat and the crumpled door. The first call he made was to the Sparrow Hills apartment of Arkady Medvedev.

Upon his arrival at Côte d’Azur International Airport, Ivan Kharkov was escorted into a windowless conference room with a rectangular table and photographs of French-built aircraft on the wall. The man who had summoned him, François Boisson, was nowhere to be seen; indeed, a full thirty minutes would elapse before Boisson finally appeared. A slender man in his fifties with small eyeglasses and a bald head, he carried himself, like all French bureaucrats, with an air of condescending authority. Offering neither explanation nor apology for his tardiness, he placed a thick file at the head of the conference table and settled himself behind it. He sat there for an uncomfortably long period, fingertips pressed thoughtfully together, before finally bringing the proceedings to order.

“Two days ago, after your aircraft was refused permission to take off from this airport, we began a careful review of your flight records and passenger manifests. Unfortunately, in the process we have discovered some serious discrepancies.”

“What sort of discrepancies?”

“It is our conclusion, Monsieur Kharkov, that you have been operating your aircraft as an illegal charter service. Unless you can prove to us that is not the case-and, I must stress, in France the burden of proof in such matters is entirely on you-then I’m afraid your aircraft will be confiscated immediately.”

“Your accusation is complete nonsense,” Ivan countered.

Boisson sighed and slowly lifted the cover of his impressive file. The first item he produced was a photograph of a Boeing Business Jet. “For the record, Monsieur Kharkov, is this your aircraft?” He pointed to the registration number on the aircraft’s tail. “N7287IK?”

“Of course it’s my plane.”

Boisson touched the first character of the tail number: the N. “Your aircraft carries American registry,” he pointed out. “When was the last time it was in the United States?”

“I couldn’t say for certain. Three years at least.”

“Do you not find that odd, Monsieur Kharkov?”

“No, I do not find it the least bit odd. As you well know, Monsieur Boisson, aircraft owners carry American registry because American registry ensures a high resale value.”

“But according to your own records, Monsieur, you are not the owner of N7287IK.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your own aircraft registration lists the owner of N7287IK as a Delaware-based firm called, oddly enough, N7287 LLC. Obviously, N7287 LLC is a corporate shell maintained for no other reason than to give your plane the illusion of American ownership. Technically, you have no relationship with this company. The president of N7287 LLC is a man named Charles Hamilton. Monsieur Hamilton is an attorney in Wilmington, Delaware. He is also the owner by proxy of the aircraft you claim is yours. Monsieur Hamilton actually leases the plane to you. Isn’t that correct, Monsieur Kharkov?”

“Technically,” snapped Ivan, “that is correct, but these sorts of arrangements are common in private aviation.”

“Common, perhaps, but not entirely honest. Before we continue with this inquiry, I must insist you prove that you are the actual owner of the Boeing Business Jet with the tail number N7287IK. Perhaps the easiest way for you to do that would be to telephone your attorney and put him on the phone with me?”

“But it’s Sunday morning in America.”

“Then I suspect he’ll be at home.”

Ivan swore in Russian and picked up his mobile phone. The call failed to go through. After two more futile attempts, he looked at Boisson in frustration.

“I sometimes have trouble in this part of the building myself,” the Frenchman said apologetically. He pointed toward the telephone at the opposite end of the conference table. “Feel free to use ours. I’m sure it’s working just fine.”

Arkady Medvedev received the call from an obviously dazed Anton Ulyanov while he was relaxing in the study of his apartment in the Sparrow Hills. After hanging up, he immediately dialed the number for Elena’s driver and received no answer. After a second unsuccessful attempt, he twice tried to reach Luka Osipov, the head of Elena’s small security detail, but with the same result. He slammed down the receiver in frustration and stared glumly out the window toward central Moscow. A summons to appear at Nice airport… a crash on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt… and now Elena’s bodyguards weren’t answering their phones… It wasn’t a coincidence. Something was going on. But for the moment, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

The departure of the Kharkov children from Pampelonne Beach did not go according to schedule, which surely would come as no surprise to any parent of small children. First there were the demands for a final swim. Then there was the struggle to get two sand-covered seven-year-olds into dry clothing suitable for the journey home. And finally there were the obligatory histrionics during the long walk to the cars. For Sonia Cherkasov, the Kharkov ’s long-suffering nanny, the task was not made any easier by the fact that she was accompanied by four armed bodyguards. Experience had taught her that, at times like these, the bodyguards were usually more trouble than the children themselves.

As a result of the delays, it was 1:45 P.M. before the Kharkov party had boarded their cars. They followed their usual course: inland on the Route des Tamaris, then south along the D93 toward the Baie de Cavalaire. As they emerged from the traffic circle east of Ramatuelle, a gendarme stepped suddenly into the roadway ahead of them and raised a white-gloved hand. The driver of the lead car briefly considered ignoring the command, but when the gendarme gave two fierce blasts on his whistle, the driver thought better of it and pulled onto the shoulder, followed by the second car.

The gendarme, a veteran of the Saint-Tropez post, knew it was pointless to address the Russian in French. In heavily accented English, he informed the driver that he had been traveling well in excess of the posted speed limit. The driver’s response-that everyone speeds in the South of France in summer-did not sit well with the gendarme, who immediately demanded to see the driver’s operating permit, along with the passports of every occupant of the two vehicles.

“We didn’t bring the passports.”

“Why not?”

“Because we were at the beach.”

“As visitors to France, you are required to carry your passports with you at all times.”

“Why don’t you follow us home? We can show you our passports and be done with this nonsense.”

The gendarme peered into the backseat.

“Are these your children, Monsieur?”

“No, they are the children of Ivan Kharkov.”

The gendarme made a face to indicate the name was not familiar to him.

“And who are you?”

“I work for Mr. Kharkov. So do my colleagues in the second car.”

“In what capacity?”

“Security.”

“Am I to assume that you are carrying weapons?”

The Russian driver nodded his head.

“May I see your permits, please?”

“We don’t have the permits with us. They’re with the passports at Mr. Kharkov’s villa.”

“And where is this villa?”

The gendarme, upon hearing the answer, walked back to his car and lifted his radio to his lips. A second vehicle, a Renault minivan, had already arrived on the scene and shortly thereafter was joined by what appeared to be most of the Saint-Tropez force. The Russian driver, watching this scene in his rearview mirror, sensed the situation was deteriorating rapidly. He drew a mobile phone from his pocket and tried to call the chief of Ivan’s detail, but the call failed to go through. After three more attempts, he gave up in frustration and looked out the window. The gendarme was now standing there, with the flap of his holster undone and his hand wrapped around the grip of his sidearm.

“Where is your weapon, Monsieur?”

The driver reached down and silently patted his hip.

“Please remove it and place it carefully on the dash of the car.” He looked at the bodyguard in the passenger seat. “You, too, Monsieur. Gun on the dash. Then I’d like you both to step out of the car very slowly and place your hands on the roof.”

“What is this all about?”

“I’m afraid we have no choice but to detain you until we can sort out the matter of your passports and weapons permits. The children and their nanny can travel together in one car. You and your three colleagues will be driven separately. We can do this in a civilized manner or, if you prefer, we can do it in handcuffs. The choice is yours, Messieurs.”

57 MOSCOW

On the western side of the House on the Embankment was a small park with a pretty red church in the center. It was not popular under normal circumstances, and now, with the clouds low and heavy with rain, it was largely deserted. A few yards from the church was a coppice of trees, and amid the trees was a bench with much Russian obscenity carved into its wood. Gabriel sat at one end; Shmuel Peled, embassy driver and clandestine officer of Israeli intelligence, sat at the other. Shmuel was chattering away in fluent Russian. Gabriel was not listening. He was focused instead on the voices emanating from his miniature earpiece. The voice of Yaakov Rossman, who reported that Elena Kharkov’s car was now free of opposition surveillance. The voice of Eli Lavon, who reported that Elena Kharkov’s car was now approaching the House on the Embankment at high speed. The voice of Uzi Navot, who reported that Elena Kharkov was now leaving her car and proceeding into the building with Luka Osipov at her shoulder. Gabriel marked the time on his wristwatch: 3:54… They were already nine minutes behind schedule.

Better hurry, Elena. We all have a plane to catch.

Word of Elena Kharkov’s arrival reached London ten seconds later, not by voice but by a terse message that flashed across the billboard-sized video screen at the front of the room. Adrian Carter had been anxiously awaiting the alert and had the handset of a dedicated line to Langley pressed tightly to his ear. “She’s heading into the building,” he said calmly. “Take down the phones. Everything from the Moscow River south to the Garden Ring.”

She crossed the lobby with Luka Osipov at her heels and entered a small foyer with a single elevator. He attempted to follow her into the waiting car but she froze him with a wave of her hand. “Wait here,” she ordered, inserting a security keycard into the slot. She removed the card and pressed the button for the ninth floor. Luka Osipov stood motionless for several seconds, watching the elevator’s ascent play out on the red lights of the control panel. Then he opened his mobile and tried to call the driver outside. Hearing nothing, he snapped the phone shut and swore softly. The whole Moscow network must have crashed, he thought. We Russians can’t do anything right.

When the doors opened on the ninth floor, another bodyguard was waiting in the vestibule. His name was Pyotr Luzhkov and, like Luka Osipov, he was a former member of the elite Alpha Group. The expression on his pasty, dull face was one of surprise. Because of the cell phone jammer concealed in Elena’s luggage, her security detail had been unable to alert him that she would be stopping by. Elena greeted him absently, then pushed past him into the entrance hall without offering any explanation for her presence. When the securityman reflexively placed his hand on her arm, Elena whirled around, eyes wide with anger.

“What are you doing? How dare you touch me! Who do you think you are?”

Luzhkov removed his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry what?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kharkov. I shouldn’t have placed my hand on you.”

“No, Pyotr, you should not have placed your hand on me. Wait until Ivan finds out about this!”

She set out down the hallway toward the office. The bodyguard followed.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kharkov, but I’m afraid I can’t allow you to enter the office unless your husband is with you.”

“Except in the event of an emergency.”

“That’s correct.”

“And I’m telling you this is an emergency. Go back to your post, you fool. I can’t punch in the code with you looking over my shoulder.”

“If there is an emergency, Mrs. Kharkov, why wasn’t I notified by Arkady Medvedev?”

“You might find this difficult to believe, Pyotr, but my husband does not tell Arkady everything. He asked me to collect some important papers from his office and bring them to France. Now, ask yourself something, Pyotr: How do you think Ivan is going to react if I miss my plane because of this?”

The bodyguard held his ground. “I’m just doing my job, Mrs. Kharkov. And my instructions are very simple. No one is allowed to enter that office without clearance from Mr. Kharkov or Arkady Medvedev. And that includes you.”

Elena looked toward the ceiling and sighed in exasperation. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to call Arkady and tell him that I’m here.” She pointed to the telephone resting on a small decorative table. “Call him, Pyotr. But do it quickly. Because if I miss my flight to France, I’m going to tell Ivan to cut out your tongue.”

The guard turned his back to Elena and snatched up the receiver. A few seconds later, he reached down, brow furrowed, and rattled the switch several times.

“Something wrong, Pyotr?”

“The phone doesn’t seem to be working.”

“That’s odd. Try my cell phone.”

The guard placed the receiver back in the cradle and turned around, only to find Elena with her arm extended and a spray bottle in her hand. The spray bottle that Gabriel had given her on the plane. She squeezed the button once, sending a cloud of atomized liquid directly into his face. The guard struggled for several seconds to maintain his balance and for an instant Elena feared the sedative hadn’t worked. Then he fell to the floor with a heavy thud, toppling the table in the process. Elena stared at him anxiously as he lay sprawled on the floor. Then she sprayed his face a second time.

That’s what you get for touching me, she thought. Swine.

Nine floors beneath her, a fat man in a gray fedora entered the foyer for the private elevators, quietly cursing his mobile phone. He looked at Luka Osipov with an expression of mild frustration and shrugged his lumpy shoulders.

“The damn thing was working a minute ago, but when I got near the building it stopped. Perhaps it’s the ghost of Stalin. My neighbor claims to have seen him wandering the halls at night. I’ve never had the misfortune of meeting him.”

The elevator doors opened; the tubby Russian disappeared inside. Luka Osipov walked over to the lobby windows and gazed into the street. At least two other people-a woman walking along the sidewalk and a taxi driver standing next to his car-were having obvious difficulty with their cell phones. The damn thing was working a minute ago, but when I got near the building it stopped… Though Comrade Stalin was a man of great power, Luka Osipov doubted whether his ghost had anything to do with the sudden interruption in cellular communications. He suspected it was something far more tangible. Something like a signal jammer.

He tried his mobile one more time without success, then walked over to the porter’s desk and asked to use his landline telephone. After ascertaining that Osipov intended to make a local call, the porter turned the instrument around and told the bodyguard to make it quick. The admonition was unnecessary. The phone wasn’t working.

“It’s dead,” Osipov said.

“It was working a minute ago.”

“Have you received any complaints from anyone in the building about trouble with their phones?”

“No, nothing.”

Luka left the porter’s desk and stepped outside. By the time he reached the limousine, the driver had his window down. Luka poked his head through the opening and told the man in the passenger seat to go inside and stand guard in the foyer. Then he turned toward the Kremlin and started walking. By the time he reached the middle of the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge, his phone was working again. The first call he made was to the Sparrow Hills.

58 MOSCOW

The floor was hardwood and recently polished. Even so, it took every bit of Elena’s strength to drag the two-hundred-pound unconscious body of Pyotr Luzhkov into the bathroom of the master bedroom suite. She locked the door from the inside, then made her way back to the entrance of Ivan’s office. The keypad was mounted at eye level on the left side. After punching in the eight-digit access code, she placed her thumb on the scanner. An alarm chirped three times and the armored door eased slowly open. Elena stepped inside and opened her handbag.

The desk, like the man who worked there, was heavy and dark and entirely lacking in grace. It also happened to be one of Ivan’s most prized possessions, for it had once belonged to Yuri Andropov, the former head of the KGB who had succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet leader in 1982. The computer monitor and keyboard sat next to a silver-framed photograph of Ivan’s father in his KGB general’s uniform. The CPU was concealed beneath the desk on the floor. Elena crouched down and pressed the POWER button, then opened a small door on the front of the unit and plugged in the USB device that Gabriel had given her on the plane. After a few seconds, the drive engaged and the computer began to whir. Elena checked the monitor: a few characters of Hebrew, a time bar indicating that the job of copying the data files would take two minutes.

She glanced at her wristwatch, then walked over to the set of ornate bookcases on the opposite side of the room. The button was hidden behind Ivan’s first edition of Anna Karenina-the second volume, to be precise. When pressed, the button caused the bookcases to part, revealing the door to Ivan’s vault. She punched the same eight-digit code into the keypad and again placed her thumb on the scanner pad. Three chirps sounded, followed this time by the dull thud of the locks.

The interior light came on automatically as she pulled open the heavy door. Ivan’s secret disks, the gray matter of his network of death, stood in a neat row on a shelf. One shelf below were some of the proceeds of that network: rubles, dollars, euros, Swiss francs. She started to reach for the money but stopped when she remembered the blood. The blood shed by men wielding Ivan’s weapons. The blood of children forced to fight in Ivan’s wars. She left the money on the shelf and took only the disks. The disks that would help Gabriel find the missiles. The disks that Gabriel would use to destroy her husband.

At the edge of Serafimovicha Street lies a broad traffic island. Like most in Moscow, it is cluttered day and night with parked cars. Some of the cars that afternoon were foreign and new; others were Russian and very old, including a battered Lada of uncertain color and registry occupied by Uzi Navot and his driver from Moscow Station. Navot did not appear happy, having witnessed several developments that had led him to conclude the operation was rapidly unraveling. He had shared that view with the rest of his teammates in the calmest voice he could manage. But now, as he watched Luka Osipov coming back over the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge at a dead sprint, he knew that the time for composure had passed. “He’s on his way back,” he murmured into his wrist mike. “And it looks like we’re in serious trouble.”

Though Shmuel Peled had no radio, the steadily darkening expression on Gabriel’s face told him everything he needed to know.

"Are we losing her, boss? Tell me we’re not losing her.”

“We’ll know soon enough. If she comes out of that building with her handbag over her left shoulder, everything is fine. If she doesn’t…” He left the thought unfinished.

“What do we do now?”

“We wait. And we hope to God she can talk her way back into her car.”

“And if she doesn’t come out?”

“Speak Russian, Shmuel. You’re supposed to be speaking Russian.”

The young driver resumed his ersatz Russian monologue. Gabriel stared at the western façade of the House on the Embankment and listened for the sound of Uzi Navot’s voice.

Luka Osipov had gained fifteen pounds since leaving the Alpha Group and lost much of his old physical fitness. As a result, he was breathing heavily by the time he arrived back at the porter’s desk in the lobby.

“I need to get into Apartment 9A immediately.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible-not without a security card for the elevator and a key for the apartment itself.”

“I believe a woman under my protection is in grave danger in that apartment at this very moment. And I need you to get me inside.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s against policy.”

“Do you know who I work for, you fool?”

“You work for Mrs. Kharkov.”

“No, I work for Ivan Kharkov. And do you know what Ivan Kharkov is going to do if anything happens to his wife?”

The porter swallowed hard. “I can get you up to the ninth floor but I can’t get you into that apartment. Mr. Kharkov doesn’t let us keep a key on file.”

“Leave that part to me.”

“Good luck,” the porter said as he came out from behind his desk. “From what I hear, you’re going to need a Red Army tank to get into that place.”

Elena closed the bookcases, removed the USB device from the computer, and switched off the power. Stepping into the hallway, she glanced at her watch: 4:02… The entire thing had taken just eight minutes. She shoved the device into the bag and closed the zipper, then punched the eight-digit code into the keypad. While the heavy door swung slowly shut, she righted the fallen table and returned the telephone to its proper place. After taking one last look around to make certain everything was in order, she started for the door.

It was then she heard the pounding. A large male fist, interspersed with a large male palm. She reckoned it was the same sort of pounding the occupants of this house of horrors had heard nearly every night during the Great Terror. How many had been dragged from this place to their deaths? She couldn’t remember the exact number now. A hundred? A thousand? What difference did it make. She only knew she might soon join them. Perhaps one day she would be the answer in a macabre Russian trivia question. Who was the last person to be taken from the House on the Embankment and murdered? Elena Kharkov, first wife of Ivan Borisovich Kharkov…

Like all those who had heard the dreaded knock, she entertained thoughts of not answering it. But she did answer. Everyone answered eventually. She did so not in fear but in a fit of feigned outrage, with her handbag over her left shoulder and her right hand wrapped around the plastic spray bottle in her coat pocket. Standing in the vestibule, his face pale with anger and damp with sweat, was Luka Osipov. A gun was in his hand and it was pointed directly at Elena’s heart. She feared the gun might go off if she attempted to deploy the spray bottle, so she drew her empty hand slowly from her pocket and placed it on her hip, frowning at her bodyguard in bewilderment.

“Luka Ustinovich,” she said, using his patronymic. “Whatever’s gotten into you?”

“Where’s Pyotr?”

“Who’s Pyotr?”

“The guard who’s supposed to be on duty at this flat.”

“There was no one here when I arrived, you idiot. Now, let’s go.”

She tried to step into the vestibule. The bodyguard blocked her path.

“What game do you think you’re playing, Luka? We have to get to the airport. Trust me, Luka Ustinovich, the last thing you want is for me to miss my plane.”

The bodyguard said nothing. Instead, he reached into the elevator, with the gun still aimed at her abdomen, and sent the carriage back down to the lobby. Then he pushed her into the apartment and slammed the door.

59 GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON

Shamron’s lighter flared in the gloom of the ops center, briefly illuminating his face. His eyes were focused on the large central display screen at the front of room, where Uzi Navot’s last transmission from Moscow flashed with all the allure of a dead body lying in a gutter.

BG ENTERING HOTE… TROUBLE…

BG stood for bodyguard. HOTE for House on the Embankment. TROUBLE required no translation. Trouble was trouble.

The screen went black. A new message appeared.

AM ENTERING HOTE… ADVISE…

The initials AM stood for Arkady Medvedev. The word ADVISE meant that Gabriel’s meticulously planned operation was in serious danger of crashing and burning, with significant loss of life a distinct possibility.

“They’re your boys,” Carter said. “It’s your call.”

Shamron flicked ash into his coffee cup. “We sit tight. We give her a chance.”

Carter looked at the digital clock. “It is now four-fifteen, Ari. If your team is to have any chance of getting on that plane, they need to be in their cars and heading to the airport in the next ten minutes.”

“Airplanes are complicated machines, Adrian. A lot of little things can go wrong with an airplane.”

“It might be a good idea to get that over and done with.” Shamron picked up a secure telephone connected to the Operations Desk at King Saul Boulevard. A few terse words in Hebrew. A calm glance at Carter.

“It appears a cabin pressure warning light is now flashing in the cockpit of El Al Flight 1612. Until that problem is resolved to the satisfaction of the captain, a man who happens to be a decorated former IAF fighter pilot, that aircraft isn’t going anywhere.”

“Well played,” said Carter.

“How long can our French friends keep Ivan tied up in Nice?”

“Monsieur Boisson is just getting started. The children, however, are another matter entirely. We have a decision to make, Ari. What do we do about the children?”

“I wouldn’t want my children sitting around a gendarmerie station, would you, Adrian?”

“Can’t say I would.”

“Then let’s take them. Who knows? Depending on what happens inside the apartment building in the next ten minutes, we may need them.”

“For what?”

“I’m not going to give her up without a fight, Adrian, and you can be sure Gabriel isn’t either.” Shamron dropped his cigarette into his coffee cup and gave it a swirl. “Call the French. Get me Ivan’s children.”

Carter picked up the secure line connected to the French ops center in Paris. Shamron looked at the message screen, where Uzi Navot’s last message flashed incessantly.

AM ENTERING HOTE… ADVISE…

AM ENTERING HOTE… ADVISE…

AM ENTERING HOTE… ADVISE…

They had placed Sonia and the children in a pleasant holding room and plied them with cold fruit juice and ice cream. A pretty young female gendarme remained with them at all times, more for company than for reasons of security. They watched cartoons and played a noisy game of cards that made no sense to anyone, least of all the children themselves. The chief duty officer made them honorary gendarmes for the day and even allowed Nikolai to inspect his firearm. Later, he would tell his colleagues that the boy knew rather too much about guns for a child of seven.

After receiving a telephone call from headquarters in Paris, the duty officer returned to the holding room and announced that it was time for everyone to go home. Anna and Nikolai greeted this news not with joy but tears; for them, the arrest and detention had been a great adventure and they were in no hurry to return home to their palace by the sea. They were finally coaxed into leaving with a promise they could come back to play anytime they wished. As they headed down the central corridor of the station, Anna held the hand of the female gendarme while Nikolai lectured the duty officer about the superiority of Russian-made weapons. Sonia asked after the whereabouts of the bodyguards but received no response.

They left the station not through the front entrance but through a rear door that gave onto an enclosed courtyard. Several official Renaults were parked there, along with an older-model Peugeot wagon. Seated behind the wheel, wearing a white Lacoste polo, was a man with gray hair. Seeing the children, he climbed out of the car with a tranquil smile on his face and opened the rear door. Sonia froze and turned to the duty officer in confusion.

“What’s going on? Who is this man?”

“This is Monsieur Henri. He’s a good man. He’s going to take you and the children somewhere safe.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Kharkov is in a bit of trouble at the moment. Mrs. Kharkov has made arrangements to place the children in the care of Monsieur Henri until she returns. She has asked that you remain with them. She promises you will be extremely well compensated. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Mademoiselle?”

“I think so.”

“Very good. Now, get into the car, please. And try not to look so frightened. It will only upset the children. And that is the last thing they need at a time like this.”

At Moscow ’s Sheremetyevo 2 Airport, Chiara was standing at her post at the check-in counter when the status window on the departure board switched from ON TIME to DELAYED. Ten feet away, in the crowded passenger lounge, 187 weary voices groaned in unison. One brave soul, a bearded Orthodox Jew in a dark suit, approached the counter and demanded an explanation. “It’s a minor mechanical problem, ” Chiara explained calmly. “The delay shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.” The man returned to his seat, skeptical he had been told the truth. Chiara turned and looked up at the board: DELAYED…

Walk away, Gabriel, she thought. Turn around and walk away.

60 MOSCOW

The clouds opened up at the same instant Gabriel’s earpiece crackled with the sound of Uzi Navot’s voice.

"We’re history.”

"What are you talking about?”

“The Old Man just issued the order to abort.”

“Tell him I want ten more minutes.”

“I’m not telling him anything. I’m following his order.”

“You go. I’ll meet you at Sheremetyevo.”

“We’re out of here. Now.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Get off the radio and into your car.”

Gabriel and Peled rose in unison and walked calmly from the park in the driving rain. Peled headed to the Volga; Gabriel, to Bolotnaya Square. Navot and Lavon joined him. Navot was wearing a waxed cap but Lavon was hatless. His wispy hair was soon plastered to his scalp.

“Why are we here?” Navot demanded. “Why are we standing in the rain in this godforsaken park when we should be in our cars heading to the airport?”

“Because I’m not leaving yet, Uzi.”

“Of course you are, Gabriel.” Navot tapped the PDA. “It says right here you are: ’Abort at 5 P.M. Moscow time and board flight at SVO.’ That’s what the message says. I’m quite certain it’s not a suggestion. In fact, I’m sure it is a direct order from the Memuneh himself.”

Memuneh was a Hebrew word that meant “the one in charge.” For as long as anyone in the Office could remember, it had been reserved for a single man: Ari Shamron.

“You can stand here in the park and shout at me until you’re hoarse, Uzi, but I’m not leaving her behind.”

“It’s not your call, Gabriel. You made a promise to Shamron in Paris. If she doesn’t come out of that building within the allotted period of time, you leave.”

Gabriel wiped the rain from his tinted glasses. “You’d better get moving, Uzi. The traffic to Sheremetyevo can be terrible this time of night.”

Navot seized Gabriel’s upper arm and squeezed it hard enough for Gabriel’s hand to go numb.

“What do you intend to do, Uzi? Drag me to the car?”

“If I have to.”

“That might cause a bit of a spectacle, don’t you think?”

“At least it will be brief. And unlike your desire to stay here in Moscow, chances are it won’t be fatal.”

“Let go of my arm, Uzi.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Gabriel. I’m the chief of Special Ops, not you. You’re nothing but an independent contractor. Therefore, you report to me. And I am telling you to get into that car and come with us to the airport.”

Eli Lavon carefully removed Navot’s hand from Gabriel’s arm. “That’s enough, Uzi. He’s not getting on the plane.”

Navot shot Lavon a dark look. “Thanks for the support, Eli. You Wrath of God boys always stick together, don’t you?”

“I don’t want him to stay behind any more than you do. I just know better than to waste my breath trying to talk him out of it. He has a hard head.”

“He’ll need it.” The rain was now streaming off the brim of Navot’s hat onto his face. “Do you know what’s going to happen if I get on that plane without you? The Old Man will line me up against the wall and use me for target practice.”

Gabriel held up his wristwatch so Navot could see it. “Five o’clock, Uzi. Better be running along. And take Eli with you. He’s a fine watcher, but he’s never been one for the rough stuff.”

Navot gave Gabriel a Shamronian stare. He was done arguing.

“If I were you, I’d stay away from your hotel.” He reached into his coat pocket and handed Gabriel a single key. “I’ve been carrying this around in case we needed a crash pad. It’s an old Soviet wreck of a building near Dinamo Stadium, but it will do.”

Navot recited the street address, the building number, and the number of the apartment. “Once you’re inside, signal the station and bar the door. We’ll put in an extraction team. With a bit of luck, you’ll still be there when they arrive.”

Then he turned away without another word and pounded across the rain-swept square toward his car. Lavon watched him for a moment, then looked at Gabriel.

“Sure you don’t want some company?”

“Get to the airport, Eli. Get on that plane.”

“What would you like me to tell your wife?”

Gabriel hesitated a moment, then said, “Tell her I’m sorry, Eli. Tell her I’ll make it up to her somehow.”

“It’s possible you might be making a terrible mistake.”

“It won’t be the first time.”

“Yes, but this is Moscow. And it could be the last.”

Navot’s transmission appeared on the screen of the London ops center at 5:04 Moscow time: LEAVING FOR SVO… MINUS ONE… Adrian Carter swore softly and looked at Shamron, who was turning over his old Zippo lighter in his fingertips.

Two turns to the right, two turns to the left…

“It seems you were right,” Carter said.

Shamron said nothing.

Two turns to the right, two to the left…

“The French say Ivan is about to blow, Ari. They say the situation at Nice is getting tenuous. They would like a resolution, one way or the other.”

“Perhaps it’s time to let Ivan see the scope of the dilemma he is now facing. Tell your cyberwarriors to turn the phones back on in Moscow. And tell the French to confiscate Ivan’s plane. And, while they’re at it, take his passport, too.”

“That should get his attention.”

Shamron closed his eyes.

Two turns to the right, two to the left…

By the time Ivan Kharkov emerged from the airport conference room at the Côte d’Azur International Airport, his anger had reached dangerous levels. It exploded into mild physical violence when he found his two bodyguards dozing on the couch. They stormed down a flight of stairs together, Ivan ranting in Russian to no one in particular, and climbed into the armored Mercedes limousine for the return trip to Saint-Tropez. When the car was two hundred feet from the building, Ivan’s phone rang. It was Arkady Medvedev calling from Moscow.

“Where have you been, Ivan Borisovich?”

“Stuck at the airport, dealing with my plane.”

“Do you have any idea what’s been going on?”

“The French are trying to steal my plane. And my passport. That’s what’s going on, Arkady.”

“They’re trying to steal more than that. They’ve got your children, too. It’s part of some elaborate operation against you. And it’s not just going on there in France. Something’s happening here in Moscow, too.”

Ivan made no response. Arkady Medvedev knew it was a dangerous sign. When Ivan was merely angry, he swore violently. But when he was mad enough to kill, he went dead silent. He finally instructed his chief of security to tell him everything he knew. Medvedev did so in a form of colloquial Russian that was nearly indecipherable to a Western ear.

“Where is she now, Arkady?”

“Still in the apartment.”

“Who put her up to this?”

“She claims she did it on her own.”

“She’s lying. I need to know what I’m up against. And quickly.”

“You need to get out of France.”

“With no plane and no passport?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Throw a party, Arkady. Somewhere outside the city. See if anyone shows up without an invitation.”

“And if they do?”

“Give them a message from me. Let them know that if they fuck with Ivan Kharkov, Ivan Kharkov is going to fuck with them.”

61 SHEREMETYEVO 2 AIRPORT, MOSCOW

They arrived at intervals of five minutes and made their way separately through security and passport control. Uzi Navot came last, hat pulled low over his eyes, raincoat drenched. He walked the length of the terminal twice, searching for watchers, before finally making his way to Gate A23. Lavon and Yaakov were gazing nervously out at the tarmac. Between them was an empty seat. Navot lowered himself into it and rested his attaché case on his knees. He stared hard at Chiara for a moment, like a middle-aged traveler admiring a beautiful younger woman.

“How’s she doing?”

Lavon answered. “How do you think she’s doing?”

“She has no one to blame but her husband.”

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for recriminations later.” Lavon checked the departure board. “How much longer do you think Shamron is going to hold the plane?”

“As long as he thinks he can.”

“By my estimate, she’s been in the hands of Arkady Medvedev for two hours now. How long do you think it took him to tear her bag apart, Uzi? How long did it take him to find Ivan’s disks and Gabriel’s electronic toys?”

Navot typed a brief message on his BlackBerry. Two minutes later, the status window in the departure monitor changed from DELAYED to NOW BOARDING. One hundred eighty-seven weary passengers began to applaud. Three anxious men stared gloomily through the window at the shimmering tarmac.

“Don’t worry, Uzi. You did the right thing.”

“Just don’t ever tell Chiara. She’ll never forgive me.” Navot shook his head slowly. “It’s never a good idea to bring spouses into the field. You’d think Gabriel would have learned that by now.”

There was a time in Moscow, not long ago, when a man sitting alone in a parked car would have come under immediate suspicion. But that was no longer the case. These days, sitting in parked cars, or cars stuck in traffic, was what Muscovites did.

Gabriel was on the northern edge of Bolotnaya Square, next to a billboard plastered with a dour portrait of the Russian president. He did not know whether the spot was legal or illegal. He did not care. He cared only that he could see the entrance of the House on the Embankment. He left the engine running and the radio on. It sounded to Gabriel like a news analysis program of some kind: long cuts of taped remarks by the Russian president interspersed with commentary by a panel of journalists and experts. Their words were surely laudatory, for the Kremlin tolerated no other kind. Forward as one! as the president liked to say. And keep your criticism to yourself.

Twenty minutes into his vigil, a pair of underfed Militia officers rounded the corner, tunics glistening. Gabriel turned up the radio and nodded cordially. For a moment, he feared they might be contemplatinga shakedown. Instead, they frowned at his old Volga, as if to say he wasn’t worth their time on a rainy night. Next came a man with lank, dark hair, and an open bottle of Baltika beer in his hand. He shuffled over to Gabriel’s window and opened his coat, revealing a veritable pharmacy underneath. Gabriel motioned for him to move on, then flicked the wipers and focused his gaze on the building. Specifically, on the lights burning in the ninth-floor apartment overlooking the Kremlin.

They went dark at 7:48 P.M. The woman who emerged from the building soon after had no handbag hanging over her left shoulder. Indeed, she had no handbag at all. She was walking more swiftly than normal; Luka Osipov, bodyguard turned captor, held one arm while a colleague held another. Arkady Medvedev walked a few steps behind, head lowered against the rain, eyes up and on the move.

A Mercedes waited at the curb. The seating arrangements had clearly been determined in advance, for the boarding process was accomplished with admirable speed and efficiency: Elena in the backseat, wedged between bodyguards; Arkady Medvedev in the front passenger seat, a mobile phone now pressed to his ear. The car crept to the end of Serafimovicha Street, then disappeared in a black blur. Gabriel counted to five and slipped the Volga into gear. Forward as one.

62 MOSCOW

They roared southward out of the city on a road that bore Lenin’s name and was lined with monuments to Lenin’s folly. Apartment blocks-endless apartments blocks. The biggest apartment blocks Gabriel had ever seen. It was as if the masters of the Communist Party, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to uproot the entire population of the world’s biggest country and resettle it here, along a few wretched miles of the Leninsky Prospekt. And to think that by the end of September it would be covered beneath a blanket of snow and ice.

At that hour, the Leninsky was two different roads: inbound lanes clogged with Muscovites returning from the weekend at their dachas, outbound lanes filled with giant trucks thundering out of the capital toward the distant corners of the empire. The trucks were both his allies and enemies. One moment, they granted Gabriel a place to hide. The next, they obscured his view. Shmuel Peled had been right about the Volga-it did run decently for a twenty-year-old piece of Soviet-made junk-but it was no match for the finest automobile Bavaria had to offer. The Volga topped out at about eighty-five, and did so with much protest and pulling to the left. Its little wipers were altogether useless against the heavy rain and road spray, and the defroster fan was little more than a warm exhalation of breath against the glass. In order to see, Gabriel had to lower both front windows to create a cross draft. Each passing truck hurled water against the left side of his face.

The rain tapered, and a few rays of weak sunlight peered through a slit in the clouds near the horizon. Gabriel kept his foot pressed to the floor and his eyes fastened to the taillights of the Mercedes. His thoughts, however, were focused on the scene he had just witnessed at the House on the Embankment. How had he managed it? How had Arkady convinced her to walk into the car without a fight? Was it with a threat or a promise? With the truth or a lie, or some combination of both? And why were they now hurtling down the Leninsky Prospekt, into the yawning chasm of the Russian countryside?

Gabriel was pondering that final question when he felt the first impact on his rear bumper: a car, much bigger and faster than his own, headlights doused. He responded by pressing the accelerator to the floor but the Volga had nothing more to give. The car behind gave him one more tap, almost as a warning, then moved in swiftly for the kill.

What followed was the classic maneuver that every good traffic policeman knows. The aggressor initiates contact with the victim, right front bumper to left rear bumper. The aggressor then accelerates hard and the victim is sent spinning out of control. The impact of such a tactic is magnified substantially when there is a sharp imbalance in the weight and power of the two vehicles-for example, when one is an S-Class Mercedes-Benz and the other is a rattletrap old Volga already being pushed to the breaking point. How many times Gabriel’s car actually rotated, he would never know. He only knew that, when it was over, the car was resting on its side in a field of mud at the edge of a pine forest and he was bleeding heavily from the nose.

Two of Arkady Medvedev’s finest waded into the mud to retrieve him, though their motives were hardly altruistic. One was a skinheaded giant with a right hand like a sledgehammer. The hammer struck Gabrielonly once, for once was all that was necessary. He toppled backward, into the mud, and for an instant saw upside-down pine trees. Then the trees streaked skyward toward the clouds like missiles. And Gabriel blacked out.

At that same moment, El Al Flight 1612 was rapidly gaining altitude over the suburbs of Moscow and banking hard toward the south. Uzi Navot was seated next to the window in the final row of first class, hand wrapped around a glass of whiskey, eyes scanning the vast carpet of winking yellow lights beneath him. For a few seconds, he could see it all clearly: the ring roads around the Kremlin, the snakelike course of the river, the thunderous prospekts leading like spokes into the endless expanse of the Russian interior. Then the plane knifed into the clouds and the lights of Moscow vanished. Navot pulled down his window shade and lifted the whiskey to his lips. I should have broken his arm, he thought. I should have broken the little bastard’s arm.

Gabriel opened his eyes slowly. Not eyes, he thought. Eye. The left eye only. The right eye was unresponsive. The right eye was the one that had been punched by the bald giant. It was now swollen shut and crusted over with clotted blood.

Before attempting movement, he took careful stock of his situation. He was sprawled on the concrete floor of what appeared to be a warehouse, with his hands cuffed at his back and his legs in something resembling a running position, right leg lifted in front of him, left extended backward. His right shoulder was pressing painfully against the floor, as was the right side of his face. Somewhere, a light was burning, but his own corner of the building was in semidarkness. A few feet away stood a stack of large wooden crates with Cyrillic markings on the sides. Gabriel struggled to make out the words but could not. The alphabet was still like hieroglyphics to him; the crates could have been filled with tins of caviar or vials of deadly polonium and he would have never known the difference.

He rolled onto his back and lifted his knees to his chest, then levered himself into a sitting position. The exertion of the movement, combined with the fact that he was now upright, caused his right eye to begin throbbing with catastrophic pain. He reckoned the blow had fractured the orbit around the eye. For all he knew, he no longer had an eye, just an immense crater in the side of his head where once his eye had been.

He leaned against the wooden crates and looked around him. There were other stacks of crates, towering stacks of crates, receding into the distance like the apartment buildings of the Leninsky Prospekt. From his limited vantage point, Gabriel could only see two rows, but he had the impression there were many more. He doubted they were filled with caviar. Not even the gluttonous Ivan Kharkov could devour that much caviar.

He heard the sound of footsteps approaching from a distance. Two sets. Both heavy. Both male. One man significantly larger than the other. The big man was the bald giant who had hit him. The smaller man was several years older, with a fringe of iron-gray hair and a skull that looked as if it been specially designed to withstand much blunt trauma.

“Where are the children?” asked Arkady Medvedev.

“What children?” replied Gabriel.

Medvedev nodded to the giant, then stepped away as if he didn’t want his clothing to be spattered with the blood. The sledgehammer crashed into Gabriel’s skull a second time. Same eye, same result. Pine trees and missiles. Then nothing at all.

63 LUBYANKA SQUARE, MOSCOW

Like almost everyone else in Moscow, Colonel Grigori Bulganov of the FSB was divorced. His marriage, like Russia itself, had been characterized by wild lurches from one extreme to the other: glasnost one day, Great Terror the next. Thankfully, it had been short and had produced no offspring. Irina had won the apartment and the Volkswagen; Grigori Bulganov, his freedom. Not that he had managed to do much with it: a torrid office romance or two, the occasional afternoon in the bed of his neighbor, a mother of three who was divorced herself.

For the most part, Grigori Bulganov worked. He worked early in the morning. He worked late into the evening. He worked Saturdays. He worked Sundays. And sometimes, like now, he could even be found at his desk late on a Sunday night. His brief was counterespionage. More to the point, it was Bulganov’s job to neutralize attempts by foreign intelligence services to spy on the Russian government and State-owned Russian enterprises. His assignment had been made more difficult by the activities of the FSB’s sister service, the SVR. Espionage by the SVR had reached levels not seen since the height of the Cold War, which had prompted Russia ’s adversaries to respond in kind. Grigori Bulganov could hardly blame them. The new Russian president was fond of rattling his saber, and foreign leaders needed to know whether it had an edge to it or had turned to rust in its scabbard.

Like many FSB officers, Bulganov supplemented his government salary by selling his expertise, along with knowledge gained through his work itself, to private industry. In Bulganov’s case, he served as a paid informant for a man named Arkady Medvedev, the chief of security for Russian oligarch Ivan Kharkov. Bulganov fed Medvedev a steady stream of reports dealing with potential threats to his businesses, legal and illicit. Medvedev rewarded him by keeping a secret bank account in Bulganov’s name filled with cash. As a consequence of the arrangement, Grigori Bulganov had been able to penetrate Ivan Kharkov’s operations in a way no other outsider ever had. In fact, Bulganov was quite confident he knew more about Ivan’s arms-trafficking activities than any other intelligence officer in the world. In Russia, such knowledge could be dangerous. Sometimes, it could even be fatal, which explained why Bulganov was careful to stay on Arkady Medvedev’s good side. And why, when Medvedev called his cell at 11:15 P.M. on a Sunday night, he didn’t dare consider not answering it.

Grigori Bulganov did not speak for the next three minutes. Instead, he tore a sheet of notepaper into a hundred pieces while he listened to the account of what had taken place in Moscow that afternoon. He was glad Medvedev had called him. He only wished he had done it on a secure line.

“Are you sure it’s him?” Bulganov asked.

“No question.”

“How did he get back into the country?”

“With an American passport and a crude disguise.”

“Where is he now?”

Medvedev told him the location.

“What about Ivan’s wife?”

“She’s here, too.”

“What are your plans, Arkady?”

“I’m going to give him one more chance to answer a few questions. Then I’m going to drop him in a hole somewhere.” A pause. “Unless you’d like to do that for me, Grigori?”

“Actually, I might enjoy that. After all, he did disobey a direct order.”

“How quickly can you get down here?”

“Give me an hour. I’d like to have a word with the woman, too.”

“A word, Grigori. This matter doesn’t concern you.”

“I’ll be brief. Just make sure she’s there when I arrive.”

“She’ll be here.”

“How many men do you have there?”

“Five.”

“That’s a lot of witnesses.”

“Don’t worry, Grigori. They’re not the talkative sort.”

64 KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA

When Gabriel woke next, it was to the sensation of a dressing being applied to his wounded eye. He opened the one that still functioned and saw the task was being performed by none other than Arkady Medvedev. The Russian was working with a single hand. The other held a gun. A Stechkin, thought Gabriel, but he couldn’t be sure. He had never cared much for Russian guns.

“Feeling sorry for me, Arkady?”

“It wouldn’t stop bleeding. We were afraid you were going to die on us.”

“Aren’t you going to kill me anyway?”

“Of course we are, Allon. We just need a little bit of information from you first.”

“And who said former KGB hoods didn’t have any manners?”

Medvedev finished applying the bandage and regarded Gabriel in silence. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I know your real name?” he asked finally.

“I assume you could have got it from your friends at the FSB. Or, it’s possible you saved yourself a phone call by simply beating it out of Elena Kharkov. You strike me as the type who enjoys hitting women.”

“Keep that up and I’ll bring Dmitri back for another go at you. You’re not some kid anymore, Allon. One or two blows from Dmitri and you might not come to again.”

“He has a lot of wasted motion in his punch. Why don’t you let me give him a couple of pointers?”

“Are you serious or is that just your Jewish sense of humor talking?”

“Our sense of humor came from living with Russians as neighbors. It helps to have a sense of humor during a pogrom. It takes the sting out of having your village burned down.”

“You have a choice, Allon. You can lie there and tell jokes all night or you can start talking.” The Russian removed a cigarette from a silver case and ignited it with a matching silver lighter. “You don’t need this shit and neither do I. Let’s just settle this like professionals.”

“By professional, I suppose you mean I should tell you everything I know, so then you can kill me.”

“Something like that.” The Russian held the cigarette case toward Gabriel. “Would you like one?”

“They’re bad for your health.”

Medvedev closed the case. “Are you up for a little walk, Allon? I think you might find this place quite interesting.”

“Any chance of taking off these handcuffs?”

“None whatsoever.”

“I thought you would say that. Help me up, will you? Just try not to pull my shoulders out of their sockets.”

Medvedev hoisted him effortlessly to his feet. Gabriel felt the room spin and for an instant thought he might topple over. Medvedev must have been thinking the same thing because he placed a steadying hand on his elbow.

“You sure you’re up for this, Allon?”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re not going to pass out on me again, are you?”

“I’ll be fine, Arkady.”

Medvedev dropped his cigarette and crushed it carefully with the toe of an expensive-looking Italian loafer. Everything Medvedev was wearing looked expensive: the French suit, the English raincoat, the Swiss wristwatch. But none of it could conceal the fact that, underneath it all, he was still just a cheap KGB hood. Just like the regime, thought Gabriel: KGB in nice clothing.

They set out together between the crates. There were more than Gabriel could have imagined. They seemed to go on forever, like the warehouse itself. Hardly surprising, he thought. This was Russia, after all. World’s largest country. World’s largest hotel. World’s largest swimming pool. World’s largest warehouse.

“What’s in the boxes?”

“Food.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Medvedev pointed toward a skyscraper of wooden crates. “That’s canned tuna. Over there are canned carrots. A little farther on is the canned beef. We even have chicken soup.”

“That’s very impressive. Fifteen years ago, Russia was living on American handouts. Now you’re feeding the world.”

“We’ve made great strides since the fall of communism.”

“What’s really in the boxes, Arkady?”

Medvedev pointed toward the same skyscraper. “Those are bullets. Fifty million rounds, to be precise. Enough to kill a good portion of the Third World. There’s not much chance of that, though. Your average freedom fighter isn’t terribly disciplined. We don’t complain. It’s good for business.”

Medvedev pointed to another stack. “Those are RPG-7s. Pound for pound, one of the best weapons money can buy. A great equalizer. With proper training, any twelve-year-old kid can take out a tank or an armored personnel carrier.”

“And the rest?”

“Over there are mortars. Next to the mortars is our bread and butter: the AK-47. It helped us beat the Germans, then it helped us change the world. The Kalashnikov gave power to the powerless. Voice to the voiceless.”

“I hear it’s very popular in the rougher neighborhoods of Los Angeles, too.”

Medvedev twisted his face into an expression of mock horror. “Criminals? No, Allon, we don’t sell to criminals. Our customers are governments. Rebels. Revolutionaries.”

“I never had you figured for a true believer, Arkady.”

“I’m not, really. I’m just in it for the money. Just like Ivan.”

They walked on in silence. Gabriel knew this wasn’t a tour but a death march. Arkady Medvedev wanted something from Gabriel before they reached their destination. He wanted Ivan’s children.

“You should know, Allon, that everything I am showing you is completely legal. We’ve got smaller warehouses in other parts of the country closer to the old armaments plants, but this is our central distribution facility. We’ve done well. We’re much bigger than our competition.”

“Congratulations, Arkady. Are profits still strong or did you grow too quickly?”

“Profits are fine, thank you. Despite Western claims to the contrary, arms trafficking is still a growth industry.”

“How did you make out on the missile deal?”

Medvedev was silent for a moment. “What missiles are you referring to, Allon?”

“The SA-18s, Arkady. The Iglas.”

“The Igla is one of the most accurate and lethal antiaircraft missiles ever produced.” Medvedev’s tone now had a briefing-room quality. “It is far too dangerous a system ever to be let loose into the free market. We don’t deal in Iglas. Only a madman would.”

“That’s not what I’m told, Arkady. I hear you sold several hundred to an African country. A country that was planning to forward them at a substantial markup to some friends at al-Qaeda.”

Gabriel lapsed into silence. When he spoke again, his tone was confiding rather than confrontational.

“We know all about the Iglas, Arkady. We also know that you were against the sale from the beginning. It’s not too late to help us. Tell me where those missiles are.”

Medvedev made no response, other than to lead Gabriel to an empty space in the center of the warehouse floor. The area was illuminated by a light burning high in the rafters overhead. Medvedev stood there, a performer on a stage, and extended his arms.

“I’m afraid it is too late.”

“Where are they now, Arkady?”

“In the hands of a very satisfied customer.”

Medvedev stepped out of the light and gave Gabriel a firm shove in the back. Apparently, there was one more thing they had to see.

65 KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA

She was secured to a straight-backed metal chair at the far end of the vast warehouse. Luka Osipov, her former bodyguard, was standing to one side, the bald giant on the other. Her blouse was torn, her cheeks aflame from repeated slaps. She stared at Gabriel’s damaged eye in horror, then lowered her gaze to the floor. Medvedev took a fistful of her dark hair. It was not the sort of gesture that suggested he intended to let her live.

“Before we begin, you should know that Mrs. Kharkov has been very cooperative this evening. She has given us a full and forthright accounting of her involvement in this sorry affair, beginning with the night she eavesdropped on my telephone conversation with her husband. She has admitted to us that the operation to steal Ivan’s secret papers was all her idea. She said you actually tried to talk her out of it.”

“She’s lying, Arkady. We forced her into it. We told her that her husband was going down and that if she didn’t cooperate with us she was going down, too.”

“That’s very chivalrous of you, Allon, but it’s not going to work.”

Medvedev tightened his grip on Elena’s hair. Elena’s face remained a stoic mask.

“Unfortunately,” Medvedev continued, “Mrs. Kharkov was unable to supply us with one critical piece of information: the location of her children. We were hoping you might tell us that now, so that Mrs. Kharkov might be spared additional unpleasantness. As you might expect, her husband is rather angry with her at the moment. He’s ordered us to do whatever’s necessary to get the answers we need.”

“I told you, Arkady, I don’t know where the children are. That information was kept from me.”

“In case you found yourself in a situation like this?”

Medvedev tossed a mobile phone toward Gabriel. It struck him in the chest and clattered to the floor.

“Call the French. Tell them to deliver the children to Ivan’s villa tonight, along with Ivan’s passport. Then tell them to release Ivan’s airplane. He’d like to return to Russia immediately.”

“Let her go,” Gabriel said. “Do whatever you want to me. But let Elena go.”

“So she can testify against her husband in a Western courtroom? So she can publicly bemoan how Russia is becoming an authoritarian state that once again poses a grave threat to global peace? That would not only be bad for the country but bad for business. You see, Mr. Kharkov’s friends in the Kremlin might find it annoying that he allowed such a situation to occur. And Mr. Kharkov tries very hard never to annoy his friends in the Kremlin.”

“I promise we won’t let her talk. She’ll raise her children and keep her mouth shut. She’s innocent.”

“Ivan doesn’t see it that way. Ivan sees her as a traitor. And you know what we do to traitors.” Medvedev held up his Stechkin for Gabriel to see, then placed the barrel against the back of Elena’s neck. “Seven grams of lead, as Stalin liked to say. That’s what Elena is going to get if you don’t order the French to let Ivan get on his plane tonight- with his children.”

“I’ll make that call when Elena is safely on the ground in the West.”

“She isn’t going anywhere.”

Elena lifted her gaze from the floor and stared directly at Gabriel.

“Don’t tell him a thing, Gabriel. They’re going to kill me regardless of what you do. I would rather those children be raised by anyone other than a monster like my husband.” She raised her eyes toward Medvedev. “You’d better pull the trigger, Arkady, because Ivan is never getting those children.”

Medvedev walked over to Gabriel and slammed the butt of the Stechkin into his right eye. Gabriel toppled sideways to the floor, blinded by excruciating pain. It was compounded when Medvedev buried an Italian loafer into Gabriel’s solar plexus. He was lining up a second kick when a distant voice intervened in Russian. The voice was familiar to Gabriel, he was sure of it, but in his agony he could not recall where he had heard it before. It came to him a moment later, when he was finally able to breathe again. He had heard the voice two months earlier, during his first trip to Moscow. He had heard the voice in Lubyanka.

66 KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA

The two men had a brief but amicable debate, as if they were quarreling over whose turn it was to pay for lunch. Because it was in Russian, Gabriel could not understand it. Nor could he see their faces. He was still lying on his side, with his abdomen exposed to Arkady Medvedev’s size-eleven loafers.

When the conversation concluded, two pairs of hands lifted him to his feet. It was then he saw the face of the man he knew only as “Sergei. ” He looked much as he had that night in Lubyanka. The same gray suit. The same gray pallor. The same lawyerly eyes behind round spectacles. He was wearing a rather stylish raincoat. His little Lenin beard had recently been groomed.

“I thought I told you not to come back to Russia, Allon.”

“If you had been doing your job, I wouldn’t have had to.”

“And which job is that?”

“Preventing scum like Ivan from flooding the world with weapons and missiles.”

Sergei sighed heavily, as if to say this was the last way he had hoped to spend his evening. Then he took hold of Gabriel’s handcuffs and gave them a sharp jerk. If Gabriel had had any feeling left in his wrists, he was certain it would have hurt like hell.

They crossed the warehouse together, Sergei trailing a step behind, and exited through a door wide enough to accommodate Ivan’s freight trucks. It was raining again; three of Medvedev’s security men were sheltering beneath the eaves, talking quietly in Russian. A few feet away was an official FSB sedan. Sergei inserted Gabriel into the backseat and slammed the door.

He drove with a Makarov in one hand and the radio on. Another speech by the Russian president, of course. What else? It was a small road and it ran through a thick birch forest. Tucked amid the trees were dachas-not palaces like Ivan’s dacha but real Russian dachas. Some were the size of a quaint cottage; others were little more than tool-sheds. All were surrounded by little plots of cultivated land. Gabriel thought of Olga Sukhova, tending to her radishes.

I believe in my Russia, and I want no more acts of evil committed in my name…

He looked into the rearview mirror and saw the eyes of Lenin.

They were searching the road behind them.

“Are we being followed, Sergei?”

“It’s not Sergei. My name is Colonel Grigori Bulganov.”

“How do you do, Colonel Bulganov?”

“I do just fine, Allon. Now shut your mouth.”

Bulganov eased into a turnout and killed the engine. After warning Gabriel not to move, he climbed out and opened the trunk. He rummaged around the interior before coming over to Gabriel’s side of the car. When he opened the door, he was holding the Makarov in one hand and a pair of rusted bolt cutters in the other.

“What are you going to do? Cut me into little pieces?”

Bulganov placed the Makarov on top of the car. “Shut up and get out.”

Gabriel did as he was told. Bulganov spun him around, so that he was facing the car, and took hold of the handcuffs. Gabriel heard a single snap and his hands were free.

“Would you like to tell me what’s going on, Sergei?”

“I told you, Allon-it’s Grigori. Colonel Grigori Bulganov.” He held out the Makarov toward Gabriel. “I assume you know how to use one of these things?”

Gabriel took hold of the gun. “Any chance of getting these cuffs off my wrists?”

“Not without the key. Besides, you’ll need to be wearing them when we walk back into that warehouse. It’s the only way we’ll be able to get Elena out of there alive.” Bulganov treated Gabriel to one of his clever smiles. “You didn’t think I was actually going to let those monsters kill her, did you, Allon?”

“Of course not, Sergei. Why would I think a thing like that?”

“I’m sure you have a few questions.”

“A couple thousand, actually.”

“We’ll have time for that later. Get back in the car and pretend your hands are still cuffed.”

67 KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA

Gabriel peered out the car window at the dachas in the trees. He did not see them. Instead, he saw a man who looked like Lenin, seated behind an interrogation table at Lubyanka. It was possible Bulganov was playing some sort of game. Possible, thought Gabriel, but not likely. The colonel had just freed his hands and given him a loaded gun-a gun he could use, if he were so inclined, to splatter the colonel’s brains across the windshield.

“What were you and Arkady talking about in Russian?”

“He told me he wanted information from you.”

“Did he tell you what it was?”

“No, he wanted me to take you into the woods and put a gun to your head. I was supposed to give you one more chance to talk before killing you.”

“And you agreed to this?”

“It’s a long story. The point is, we can use it to our advantage. We’ll walk in the same door we just walked out. I’ll tell Arkady you’ve had a change of heart. That you’re willing to tell him anything he wants to know. Then, when we’re close enough, I’ll shoot him.”

"Arkady?”

“Yes, I’ll take care of Arkady. That leaves the two other gorillas. They’re both ex-special forces. They know how to handle guns. I’m just an FSB counterintelligence officer. I watch spies.”

Bulganov glanced into the rearview mirror.

“You can’t walk into the building with the gun in your hand, Allon. You’ll have to hide it somewhere you can get to it quickly. I hear you’re not bad with a gun. Do you think you can get that Makarov out in time to keep those goons from killing us?”

Gabriel inserted the Makarov into the waistband of his trousers and concealed it with his coat. “Keep your gun pointed at me until you’re ready. When I see it move toward Arkady, I’ll take that as my cue.”

“That leaves the three boys outside.”

“They won’t stay outside for long-not when they hear the sound of gunfire inside the warehouse. Whatever you do, don’t offer them a chance to lay down their weapons and surrender. It doesn’t work that way in the real world. Just turn around and start shooting. And don’t miss. We won’t have time to reload.”

“You’ve only got eight rounds in that magazine.”

“If I have to use more than five, we’re in trouble.”

“Can you see well enough?”

“I can see just fine.”

“I have to admit something to you, Allon.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve never shot anyone before.”

“Just remember to pull the trigger, Grigori. The gun works much better when you pull the trigger.”

The three security guards were still milling about the entrance of the warehouse when Gabriel and Bulganov returned. Someone must have found where Ivan kept the beer because all three were drinking from enormous bottles of Baltika. As Gabriel walked toward the guards, he held his right wrist in his left hand to create the illusion his hands were still cuffed. Bulganov walked a half step behind, Makarov pointed at the center of Gabriel’s back. The guards seemed only moderately interested in their reappearance. Obviously, they were used to seeing condemned men being led around at the point of a gun.

It was precisely forty-two paces from the open loading door to the spot where Elena Kharkov sat chained to her metal chair. Gabriel knew this because he counted the steps in his head as he covered the distance now, with Colonel Grigori Bulganov at his side. Colonel Bulganov, who two months earlier had ordered Gabriel to be thrown down two flights of steps in Lubyanka. Colonel Bulganov, who had called himself Sergei that night and said he would kill Gabriel if he ever returned to Russia. Colonel Bulganov, who had never fired a gun in anger before and in whose hands Gabriel’s life now resided.

Arkady Medvedev was standing before Elena in his shirtsleeves and screaming obscenities into her face. As Bulganov and Gabriel approached, he turned to face them, hands on his hips, Stechkin shoved down the front of his trousers. Luka Osipov and the bald giant were standing directly behind Elena, each to one side. It was hardly optimal, Gabriel thought, but because Elena was still handcuffed to the chair, there was no chance of her getting into his line of fire. Bulganov spoke in Russian to Medvedev as they moved into point-blank range. Medvedev smiled and looked at Gabriel.

“So, you’ve come to your senses.”

“Yes, Arkady. I’ve come to my senses.”

“Tell me then. Where are Ivan’s children?”

“What children?”

Medvedev frowned and looked at Bulganov. Bulganov frowned in return and pointed his gun at Medvedev’s heart. Gabriel took a step to his right while simultaneously reaching beneath his coat for the Makarov. They fired their first shots simultaneously, Bulganov into Medvedev’s chest, Gabriel into the flat forehead of the bald giant. Luka Osipov responded with a futile attempt to draw his weapon. Gabriel’s shot caught him just beneath the chin and exited at the base of his skull.

At that instant, Gabriel heard the sound of shattering glass: the sound of three men simultaneously dropping three bottles of Baltika beer. They came in through the doorway neatly spaced, like little floating ducklings in an arcade shooting gallery. Gabriel took them down in order: head shot, head shot, torso shot.

He spun round and looked at Elena. She was desperately trying to pull her wrists through her handcuffs, her mouth wide in a silent scream. Gabriel wanted to comfort her but could not; Arkady Medvedev was still alive and was struggling to get the Stechkin out of the front of his trousers. Gabriel kicked the gun out of Medvedev’s hands and stood over him. The Russian began to pant, pink blood frothing at the side of his mouth.

“I’d like you to give Ivan a message,” Gabriel said. “Will you do that for me, Arkady?”

Medvedev nodded, his breathing rapid and shallow. Gabriel raised the Makarov and fired his last three shots into the Russian’s face. Message delivered.

Gabriel held Elena tightly while Bulganov searched the bodies for a key to the handcuffs. He found one, a universal, on Luka Osipov. He freed Elena’s hands first, then removed the cuffs from Gabriel’s hands.

“Take her out to the car,” Gabriel said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Be quick about it.”

“Just go.”

As Bulganov led Elena toward the door, Gabriel searched the corpse of Arkady Medvedev. He found keys, passports, and a wallet filled with cash. He ignored the money and removed a single item: a plastic card embossed with the image of a large apartment house on the banks of the Moscow River.

Bulganov had the Volga ’s engine running by the time Gabriel stepped outside. He climbed into the back next to Elena, whose screams were no longer silent. Gabriel held her tightly to his chest as Bulganov drove away.

Her wailing had ceased by the time they saw the sign. It stood at the intersection of two dreadful roads, rusted, crooked, and pierced by bullet holes. Two arrows pointed in opposite directions. To the left was MOCKBA, the Cyrillic spelling of Moscow. Bulganov explained what lay to the right.

“ Ukraine.”

“How long?”

“We can be over the border before dawn.”

“We?”

“I just helped an Israeli agent kill Arkady Medvedev and five of his security men. How long do you think I’ll live if I stay in Moscow? A week, if I’m lucky. I’m coming with you.”

“Another defector? That’s all we need.”

“I suspect you’ll find I’m worth my weight in gold. You see, I’ve been privately investigating the ties between men like Ivan Kharkov and the FSB for years. I also know a great deal about Ivan’s little arms-trafficking network. Much more than you, I suspect. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to come with you, Allon?”

“We’d love the company, Colonel. Besides, it’s a long drive and I don’t have a clue how to get out of here.”

Bulganov let his foot off the brake and started to turn to the right. Gabriel told him to stop.

“What’s the problem?” Bulganov asked.

“You’re going the wrong way.”

“We’re going to Ukraine. And Ukraine is to the right. Look at the sign.”

“We have a couple of errands to run before we leave.”

“Where?”

Gabriel pointed to the left.

MOCKBA…

68 MOSCOW

On the outskirts of Moscow was a supermarket that never closed. If it was not the world’s largest supermarket, thought Gabriel, then it was surely a close second: two acres of frozen foods, a mile of cookies and crackers, another mile of American soft drinks, one nightmarish wall hung with thousands of pork sausages. And that was just the food. At the far end of the market was a section called Home and Garden, where one could buy everything from clothing to motorcycles to lawn tractors. Who in Moscow needed a lawn tractor? thought Gabriel. Who in Moscow even had a lawn? “They’re for the dachas, ” Elena explained. “Now that Russians have money, they don’t like to dig with their hands anymore.” She shrugged. “But what’s the point of having a dacha if you don’t get your hands dirty?”

Why the market remained open all night was a mystery because at 2 A.M. it was deserted. They walked the endless prospekts of consumer goods, quickly pulling items from the shelves: clean clothing, bandages and antiseptic, a pair of large sunglasses, enough snack food and cola to fuel an early-morning road trip. When they wheeled their cart up to the checkout stand, the drowsy female clerk looked at Gabriel’s eye and winced. Elena contemptuously explained that her “husband” had crashed his car in a ditch-drunk out of his mind on vodka, of course. The checkout woman shook her head sadly as she rang up the items. “Russian men,” she muttered. “They never change.”

Gabriel carried the bags out to the car and climbed into the back again with Elena. Bulganov, alone in the front, told them a story as he drove toward central Moscow. It was the story of a young KGB officer who never truly believed the lies of Lenin and Stalin and who had quietly raised a glass of vodka when the empire of deception finally fell. This young officer had tried to resign after the collapse of communism but had been convinced by his mentor to stay on and help turn the KGB into a truly professional service. He had reluctantly agreed and had quickly risen through the ranks of the KGB’s domestic successor, the FSB, only to see it deteriorate into something worse than the KGB had been. This young man, at great personal risk, had then joined forces with a group of officers who hoped to reform the FSB. Quietly, said Bulganov. From the inside. But they soon realized that the top brass and their masters in the Kremlin were not interested in reform. So the group went underground. And started building a dossier.

“Our dossier does not paint a pretty picture. FSB involvement in murder for hire, prostitution, and narcotics. FSB involvement in the operations of shady oligarchs. And worse. Who do you think planned and carried out those apartment house bombings that our president used to justify going back into Chechnya? My service is a criminal enterprise from top to bottom. And it is running Russia.”

“How did I end up on your plate that night in Lubyanka?”

“Ironically, it was all by the book. We were watching you from the moment you hit the ground in St. Petersburg. And I must admit, you were quite good. We had no suspicions, even after you initiated contact with Olga Sukhova. We thought you were Natan Golani of the Israeli Ministry of Culture.”

“So you didn’t know Arkady and Ivan were going to have us killed that night?”

“No, not at all. At first, I thought you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when you survived the attack and saved Olga, that caused Ivan a serious problem. I almost lost you during your detention in Lubyanka. Ivan Kharkov himself was on the phone to the chief. He knew your real name and your real job. He wanted you taken out into a field and shot. The top floor ordered me to do just that. I pretended to go along and started stalling for time. Then, thankfully, your service made such a stink, you became too hot, even for the likes of Ivan Kharkov.”

“How did you convince them not to kill me?”

“I told them that it would be a public-relations disaster if you died in FSB custody. I told them I didn’t care what Ivan did to you once you left the country, but they couldn’t lay a hand on you while you were on Russian soil. Ivan wasn’t happy, but the top floor finally came around to my way of thinking. I put you in the van and got you to the border before they could change their minds. You came very close to dying that night, Allon-closer than you’ll ever realize.”

“Where’s the dossier now?”

“Most of it’s up here,” he said, tapping the side of his forehead. “Whatever documentation we could copy was scanned and stored in e-mail accounts outside the country.”

“How did you end up in that warehouse tonight?”

“I’ve been plying my trade on both sides of the street.”

“You’re on Ivan’s payroll?”

Bulganov nodded. “It made it much easier to gather information about the FSB’s shady dealings if I actually took part in some myself. It also gave me protection. The real rotten elements thought I was one of them. I know a great deal about Ivan’s operation. Who knows? Maybe we know enough together to track down those missiles-without going back into the House on the Embankment. Even I get the creeps going into the place. It’s haunted, you know. They say Stalin roams the halls at night knocking on doors.”

“I’m not leaving Russia without Ivan’s disks.”

“You don’t know if there’s anything on them. You also don’t know if they’re even still in the apartment.”

Elena intervened. “I saw Arkady put my handbag in the vault before we left.”

“That was a long time ago. Ivan could have ordered someone to move them.”

“He couldn’t have. Only three people in the world can access that vault: Ivan, Arkady, and me. Logically, the disks have to be there.”

“But getting them is going to cost valuable time. It also might mean another dead body. There’s going to be a new guard in the apartment. He might even have a helper or two. In the old days, the neighbors were used to the sound of a little late-night gunfire, but not now. If we have to do any shooting, it could get ugly quickly.”

“You’re still a colonel in the FSB, Grigori. And FSB colonels take shit from no one.”

“I don’t want to be an FSB colonel anymore. I want to be one of the good guys.”

“You will be,” Gabriel said. “The moment you present yourself at the Ukrainian border and declare your desire to defect.”

Bulganov lowered his eyes from the mirror and stared straight down the Leninsky Prospekt. “I already am a good guy,” he said quietly. “I just play for a very bad team.”

69 BOLOTNAYA SQUARE, MOSCOW

The Russian president frowned in disapproval as Gabriel, Elena, and Grigori Bulganov hurried across the street toward the House on the Embankment. Bulganov placed his FSB identification on the reception desk and quietly threatened to cut off the porter’s hand if he touched the telephone.

“We were never here. Do you understand me?”

The terrified porter nodded. Bulganov returned his ID to his coat pocket and walked over to the private elevator, where Gabriel and Elena had already boarded a car. As the doors closed, the two men drew their Makarovs and chambered their first rounds.

The elevator was old and slow; the journey to the ninth floor seemed to last an eternity. When the doors finally opened, Elena was pressed into one corner, with Gabriel and Bulganov, guns leveled in firing positions, shielding her body. Their precaution proved unnecessary, however, because the vestibule, like the entrance hall of the apartment, was empty. It seemed Arkady Medvedev’s highly trained security guard had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room while watching a bit of pornography on Ivan’s large-screen television. Gabriel woke the guard by inserting the barrel of the Makarov into his ear.

“If you are a good dog, you will live to see the sunrise. If you are a bad dog, I’m going to make a terrible mess on Ivan’s couch. Which is it going to be? Good dog or bad dog?”

“Good,” said the guard.

“Wise choice. Let’s go.”

Gabriel marched the guard into Ivan’s fortified office, where Elena was already in the process of opening the interior vault. Her handbag was where Medvedev had left it. The disks were still inside. Bulganov ordered the guard into the vault and closed the steel door. Elena pressed the button behind volume 2 of Anna Karenina and the bookshelves slid shut. Inside, the guard began shouting in Russian, his muffled voice barely audible.

“Maybe we should give him some water,” Bulganov said.

“He’ll be fine for a few hours.” Gabriel looked at Elena. “Is there anything else you need?”

She shook her head. Gabriel and Bulganov led the way back to the elevator, Makarovs leveled before them. The porter was still frozen in place behind the reception desk. Bulganov gave him one final reminder to keep his mouth shut, then led Gabriel and Elena out to the car.

“With a bit of luck, we can be across the border before dawn,” Bulganov said as he shoved his key into the ignition. “Unless you have any more errands you’d like to run.”

“I do, actually. I need you to make one final arrest while you’re still an FSB officer.”

“Who?”

Gabriel told him.

“It’s out of the question. There’s no way I can get past all that security.”

“You’re still a colonel in the FSB, Grigori. And FSB colonels take shit from no one.”

70 MOSCOW

An Orion’s Belt of lights burned on the north side of the House of Dogs; red lamps blinked in the transmission towers high atop the roof. Gabriel sat behind the wheel of Colonel Grigori Bulganov’s official car. Elena sat beside him, with Colonel Grigori Bulganov’s mobile phone in her hand. The colonel was not present. He was on the eleventh floor, arresting Olga Sukhova, crusading journalist from the formerly crusading Moskovsky Gazeta.

“Do you think she’ll come?” Elena asked.

“She’ll come,” said Gabriel. “She has no other choice. She knows that if she ever sets foot outside that apartment, your husband will kill her.”

Elena reached out and touched the bandage on Gabriel’s right eye. “I did the best I could. It needs stitches. Probably more. I think that beast managed to break something.”

“I’m sure he regretted his actions when he saw the gun in my hand.”

“I don’t think he ever saw your gun.” She touched his hand. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“May I make a confession?”

“Of course.”

“I’m glad you killed them. I know that must sound terrible coming from the wife of a murderer, but I’m glad you killed them the way you did. Especially Arkady.”

“I should have waited until you were gone. I’m sorry for that, Elena.”

“Will it ever go away?”

“The memory? No, it will never go away.”

She looked at the mobile phone, and checked the strength of the signal.

“So is your name really Gabriel or was that a deception, too?”

“It’s my real name.”

Elena smiled.

“Is there something humorous about my name?”

“No, it’s a beautiful name. I was just thinking about the last words my mother said to me before I left her this afternoon: ‘May the angel of the Lord be looking over your shoulder.’ I suppose she was right after all.”

“We can pick her up on the way out of town if you like.”

“My mother? The last thing you want to do is drive to Ukraine with my mother in the backseat. Besides, there’s no need to bring her out right away. Not even Ivan would harm an old woman.” She scrutinized him in silence for a moment. “So are you, in fact, the angel of the Lord?”

“Do I look like the angel of the Lord?”

“I suppose not.” She glanced up at the façade of the building. “Is it true you don’t know where my children are?”

He shook his head. “I was lying to Arkady. I know where they are.”

“Tell me.”

“Not yet. I’ll tell you when we’re safely over the border.”

“Look!” She pointed up at the building. “A light just came on. Does that mean she let him into the apartment?”

“Probably.”

She looked at the mobile phone. “Ring, damn it. Ring.”

“Relax, Elena. It’s three o’clock in the morning and an FSB colonel is telling her to pack a bag. Give her a moment to digest what’s happening. ”

“Do you think she’ll come?”

“She’ll come.”

Gabriel took the phone from her grasp and asked how she knew the Cassatt was a forgery.

“It was the hands.”

“What about the hands?”

“The brushstrokes were too impasto.”

“Sarah told me the same thing.”

“You should have listened to her.”

Just then the phone rang. Gabriel handed it to Elena.

“Da?” she said, then: “Da, da.”

She looked at Gabriel.

“Flash the lights, Gabriel. She wants you to flash the headlights.”

Gabriel flicked the headlamps twice. Elena spoke a few more words in Russian. The eleventh-floor window went dark.