Moscow Rules

71 VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA

The vendemmia, the annual harvest of the wine grapes, commenced at the Villa dei Fiori on the final Saturday in September. It coincided with the unwelcome news that the restorer was planning to return to Umbria. Count Gasparri briefly considered making the drive from Rome to inform the staff in person. In the end, he decided a quick telephone call to Margherita would suffice.

“When is he scheduled to arrive?” she asked, her voice heavy with dread.

“This is unclear.”

“But of course. Will he be alone or accompanied by Francesca?”

“This is also unclear.”

“Should we assume he’ll be working again?”

“That is the hope,” Gasparri said. “But my friends at the Vatican tell me he’s been in some sort of accident. I wouldn’t expect him to be in a terribly good mood.”

“How will we tell the difference?”

“Be kind to him, Margherita. Apparently, the poor man’s been through quite an ordeal.”

And with that the line went dead. Margherita hung up the phone and headed out to the vineyards.

The poor man’s been through quite an ordeal…

Yes, she thought. And now he’s going to take it out on us.

The ‟return,” as it became known to the staff, occurred late that same evening. Carlos, who lived in a stone cottage on a hill above the pasture, spotted the little Passat wagon as it turned through the gate and started down the gravel road toward the villa with its headlamps doused. He quickly telephoned Isabella, who was standing on the veranda of her residence near the stables as the blacked-out car flashed by in a cloud of dust. Her observation, though brief, yielded two critical pieces of information: the car definitely contained not one but two people-the restorer and the woman they knew as Francesca-and the woman was driving. Strong circumstantial evidence, she told Carlos, that the restorer had indeed suffered an accident of some sort.

The last member of the staff to see the couple that night was Margherita, who watched them cross the courtyard from her static post above the chapel. Like all housekeepers, Margherita was a natural watcher-and, like any good watcher, she took note of small details. She found it odd, to say the least, that the woman was leading the way. She also thought she could detect something different about the restorer’s movements. Something vaguely hesitant in his step. She saw him once more, when he appeared in the upstairs window and gazed in her direction over the courtyard. There was no soldierly nod this time; in fact, he gave no indication that he was even aware of her presence. He just peered into the gloom, as if searching for an adversary that he knew was there but could not see.

The shutters closed with a thump and the restorer disappeared from sight. Margherita remained frozen in her window for a long time after, haunted by the image she had just seen. A man in a moonlit window with a heavy bandage over his right eye.

Unfortunately, Count Gasparri’s predictions about the restorer’s mood turned out to be accurate. Unlike in summer, when he had been predictably aloof, his moods now fluctuated between chilling silences and flashes of alarming temper. Francesca, while apologetic, offered few clues about how he had sustained the injury, stating only that he had suffered “a mishap” while working abroad. Naturally, the staff was left to speculate as to what had actually happened. Their theories ranged from the absurd to the mundane. They were certain of one thing: the injury had left the restorer dangerously on edge, as Anna discovered one morning when she approached him from behind while he was struggling to read the newspaper. His sudden movement gave her such a start that she vowed never to go near him again. Margherita took to singing as she went about her chores, which only seemed to annoy him more.

At first, he did not venture beyond the Etruscan walls of the garden. There, he would spend afternoons beneath the shade of the trellis, drinking his Orvieto wine and reading until his eye became too fatigued to continue. Sometimes, when it was warm, he would wander down to the pool and wade carefully into the shallow end, making certain to keep his bandaged eye above water. Other times, he would lie on his back on the chaise and toss a tennis ball into the air, for hours on end, as if testing his vision and reactions. Each time he returned to the villa, he would pause in the drawing room and stare at the empty studio. Margherita took note of the fact that he would not stand in his usual spot, directly before the easels, but several paces away. “It’s as if he’s trying to imagine himself working again,” she told Anna. “The poor man isn’t at all sure he’ll ever lay his hands on another painting.”

He soon felt strong enough to resume his walks. In the beginning, they were not long, nor were they conducted at a rapid pace. He wore wraparound sunglasses to cover his eyes and a cotton bucket hat pulled down to the bridge of his nose. Some days, the woman accompanied him, but usually he walked alone, with only the dogs for company. Isabella greeted him pleasantly each time he passed the stables, even though she usually received only a taciturn nod in return. His mood improved with exercise, though, and once he actually stopped for a few minutes to chat about the horses. Isabella offered to give him riding lessons when his eye had healed, but he made no response other than to turn his gaze skyward to watch a jetliner on final approach to Fiumicino Airport. “Are you afraid?” Isabella asked him. Yes, he admitted as the plane disappeared behind a khaki-colored hill. He was very afraid.

With each passing day, he walked a little farther, and by the middle of October he was able to hike to the gate and back each morning. He even began venturing into the woods again. It was during one such outing, on the first chilly day of the season, that the Villa dei Fiori echoed with a single crack of a small-caliber weapon. The restorer emerged from the trees a few moments later with a sweater knotted casually round his neck and the dogs howling with bloodlust. He informed Carlos that he had been charged by a wild boar and that the boar, unfortunately, had not survived the encounter. When Carlos looked for evidence of a gun, the restorer seemed to smile. Then he turned and set out down the gravel road toward the villa. Carlos found the animal a few minutes later. Between its eyes was a bloodless hole. Small and neat. Almost as if it had been painted with a brush.

The next morning, the Villa dei Fiori, along with the rest of Europe, awoke to the stunning news that a disaster of unimaginable proportions had been narrowly averted. The story broke first in London, where the BBC reported that Scotland Yard was conducting “major terrorism-related raids” in East London and in neighborhoods near Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Later that morning, a sober-looking British prime minister went before the cameras at Downing Street to inform the nation that the security services had disrupted a major terrorist plot aimed at simultaneously destroying several airliners in British airspace. It was not the first time a plot such as this had been uncovered in Britain. What set this one apart, though, were the weapons involved: SA-18 shoulder-launch antiaircraft missiles. British police had found twelve of the sophisticated weapons during their early-morning raids and, according to the prime minister, were frantically searching for more. He refused to say where the terrorists had obtained the missiles but pointedly reminded reporters of the name of the country where the weapons were manufactured: Russia. Finally, in a chilling endnote, the prime minister stated that the plot had been “global in scope” and warned reporters that they had a long day ahead.

Ten minutes later, in Paris, the French president strode before the cameras at the Élysée Palace and announced that a similar round of police raids had been carried out that same morning in the suburbs of Paris and in the South of France. Twenty missiles had been found thus far, ten in an apartment near Charles de Gaulle Airport and ten more on a fishing boat in Marseilles ’s bustling old port. Unlike the British prime minister, who had been circumspect about the origin of the missiles, the French president said it was clear to him that the weapons had been supplied to the terrorists, directly or indirectly, by a Russian source. He also suggested that the French security and intelligence services had played “a major role in foiling the plot.”

Similar scenes played out in rapid succession in Madrid, Rome, Athens, Zurich, Copenhagen, and, finally, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Washington, D.C. Flanked by his senior national security staff, the president told the American people that eight SA-18 missiles had been discovered aboard a motor yacht bound for Miami from the Bahamas and six more had been found in the trunk of a car attempting to enter the United States from Canada. Four suspected terrorists had been detained and were now undergoing interrogation. Based on what had been gleaned thus far, both by American and European investigators, it appeared the plot had been timed to coincide with the Christmas holidays. American and Israeli aircraft were the primary targets of the terrorists, who were hoping to maximize casualties among “the Crusaders and the Jews.” The president assured the American people that the plot had been fully disrupted and that it was safe to fly. The traveling public apparently did not agree. Within hours of the announcement, hundreds of flights were delayed or rescheduled due to an unprecedented wave of passenger cancellations. Airline analysts predicted the news would cause severe financial damage to an already-troubled industry.

By nightfall, all eyes were on Moscow, where the Kremlin had maintained a Soviet-like silence as the story unfolded. Shortly after 11 P.M., a spokesman for the Russian president finally issued a terse statement categorically denying any link between the terrorist plot and legitimate arms sales by Russia to its clients in the Middle East. If the missiles had indeed come from a Russian source, said the spokesman, then it was almost certainly a criminal act-one that would be investigated to the fullest extent possible by Russian authorities. Within a few hours, however, the veracity of the Russian statement was called into question by a dramatic newspaper report in London. It was written by someone the men of the Kremlin knew well: Olga Sukhova, the former editor in chief of Moskovsky Gazeta.

It was among the most intriguing aspects of the entire affair. Kept under virtual house arrest in her Moscow apartment for much of the summer, Olga Sukhova had managed to slip out of Russia undetected, purportedly with the help of an FSB colonel named Grigori Bulganov. After crossing the Ukrainian border by car, the two were spirited to a safe house in England, where they had worked closely with U.S. and British intelligence officers involved in the search for the SA-18 missiles. In exchange for her cooperation, Olga had been granted “a period of exclusivity” regarding certain details of the affair-details she published, in spectacular fashion, in London ’s Telegraph newspaper.

According to her front-page story, the missiles seized by European and American officials had originally been sold to the Democratic Republic of East Africa by Russian businessman and arms trafficker Ivan Kharkov. Kharkov had reportedly concluded the sale with the full knowledge that the weapons were to be transferred to an al-Qaeda affiliate in the Horn of Africa. The article also implicated Kharkov and his now-deceased chief of security, Arkady Medvedev, in the murders of Gazeta journalists Aleksandr Lubin and Boris Ostrovsky.

For the next several days, Olga Sukhova was a fixture on European and American television. So, too, was the man credited with facilitating her escape: Colonel Grigori Bulganov of the FSB. He told tales of rampant corruption inside his old service and warned that the new masters of the Kremlin were nothing but KGB thugs who planned to confront the West at every turn.

By the end of the week, he and Olga Sukhova had both signed lucrative book deals. As for the man at the center of the storm, he was nowhere to be found. Ivan Borisovich Kharkov, real estate developer, venture capitalist, and international arms trafficker, had apparently vanished into thin air.

His assets were quickly seized; his bank accounts quickly frozen. For a time, his grand palaces were surrounded day and night by reporters and cameramen. Finally, when it became clear Ivan was never coming back, the reporters moved on in search of other prey.

The list of countries where Ivan was suddenly wanted for arrest or questioning was long and somewhat ludicrous. There was irony in the situation, of course; even the most jaundiced observer had to admit it. For years, Ivan had callously fueled the deadly civil wars and conflicts of the Third World with little or no interference from the West. But only when he crossed some moral line-when he dared to sell his wares directly to the forces of global Islamic extremism-did the governments of the civilized world sit up and take notice. Even if al-Qaeda had managed to carry out its attack as planned, said one respected commentator, the death toll would have been but a tiny fraction of those killed by Ivan’s guns and bullets in Africa alone.

It was assumed by all that he had taken refuge somewhere inside Russia. How he had managed to get there from France, where he was last seen, was a matter of considerable contention. French aviation officials acknowledged that Ivan’s private jet had departed Côte d’Azur International Airport on the morning of August twenty-sixth, though they refused repeated requests to release a flight plan or complete manifest.The press demanded to know whether French authorities had been aware of Ivan’s activities at the time of the flight. If so, they asked, why had he and his party been allowed to depart?

Confronted with a gathering media storm, French authorities were finally forced to admit that they were indeed aware of Ivan’s involvement in the missile sale at the time of the flight in question, but “certain operational exigencies” required that Ivan be allowed to leave French soil. Those operational exigencies notwithstanding, French prosecutors now wanted Ivan back, as did their counterparts in Britain, where he faced a slew of criminal charges ranging from money laundering to involvement in a plot to commit an act of mass murder. A Kremlin spokesman dismissed the charges as “Western lies and propaganda” and pointed out that it was not possible under Russian law to extradite Mr. Kharkov to face criminal charges. The spokesman went on to say that Russian authorities were completely unaware of Mr. Kharkov’s whereabouts and had no record he was even in the country.

Forty-eight hours later, when a photograph surfaced of Ivan attending a Kremlin reception for the newly reelected Russian president, the Kremlin could not be troubled for a comment. In the West, much was made of the fact that Ivan had attended the reception with a stunning young supermodel named Yekatarina Mazurov rather than his elegant wife. A week later, he filed for divorce in a Russian court, accusing Elena Kharkov of sins ranging from infidelity to child abuse. Elena was not there to contest the charges. Elena, it seemed, had disappeared from the face of the earth.

None of which seemed to concern the staff of the Villa dei Fiori in Umbria, for they had more pressing matters with which to contend. There were crops to bring in and fences that needed mending. There was a horse with an injured leg and a leak in the roof that needed fixing before the heavy rains of winter. And there was a melancholy man with a patch over one eye who feared he would never be able to work again. He could do nothing now but wait. And toss his tennis ball against the Etruscan walls of the garden. And walk the dusty gravel road with the hounds at his heels.

72 VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA

Ari Shamron telephoned a week later to invite himself to lunch. He arrived in a single embassy car, with Gilah at his side. The afternoon was windy and raw, so they ate indoors in the formal dining room with an olive-wood fire blazing in the open hearth. Shamron referred to himself as Herr Heller, one of his many work names, and spoke only German in front of Anna and Margherita. When lunch was over, Chiara and Gilah helped with the dishes. Gabriel and Shamron pulled on coats and walked along the gravel road between the umbrella pines. Shamron waited until they were a hundred yards from the villa before lighting his first Turkish cigarette. “Don’t tell Gilah,” he said. “She’s bothering me to quit again.”

“She’s not as naïve as you think. She knows you smoke behind her back.”

“She doesn’t mind as long as I make at least some effort to conceal it from her.”

“You should listen to her for once. Those things are going to kill you.”

“I’m as old as these hills, my son. Let me enjoy myself while I’m still here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me Gilah was coming with you?”

“I suppose it slipped my mind. I’m not used to traveling with my wife. We’re going to Vienna to listen to music next. Then we’re going to London to see a play.”

Shamron made it sound as if he had been sentenced to a month in solitary, with punishment rations.

“This is what people do when they retire, Ari. They travel. They relax.”

“I’m not retired. God, I hate that word. Next, you’ll accuse me of being deceased.”

“Try to enjoy yourself, Ari-if not for your sake, then for Gilah’s. She deserves a nice holiday in Europe. We all love you dearly, but you haven’t exactly been the perfect husband and father.”

“And for my sins, I am to be punished with a week of Mozart and Pinter.”

They walked in silence, Gabriel with his gaze downward, Shamron trailing smoke like a steam engine.

“I hear we’re sending a doctor up here tomorrow to remove your bandages.”

“Is that why you came? To see the great unveiling?”

“Gilah and I thought you would like to have some family around. Were we wrong to come?”

“Of course not, Ari. I just might not be very good company. That gorilla managed to fracture my orbit and cause significant damage to my retina. Even under the best of circumstances, I’m going to have blurred vision for a while.”

“And the worst?”

“Significant loss of vision in one eye. Not exactly a helpful condition for someone who makes his living restoring paintings.”

“You make your living defending the State of Israel.” Greeted by Gabriel’s silence, Shamron looked up at the treetops moving in the wind. “What’s wrong, Gabriel? No speech about how you’re planning to leave the Office for good this time? No lecture about how you’ve given enough to your country and your people already?”

“I’ll always be here for you, Ari-as long as I can see, of course.”

“What are your plans?”

“I’m going to remain a guest of Count Gasparri until I wear out my welcome. And, if my vision permits, I’m going to quietly restore a few paintings for the Vatican Museums. You may recall I was working on one when you asked me to run that little errand in Rome. Unfortunately, I had to let someone else finish it for me.”

“I’m afraid I’m not terribly sympathetic. You saved thousands of lives with that little errand. That’s more important than restoring a painting.”

They came to the fork in the track. Shamron looked up at the large, wood-carved crucifix and shook his head slowly. “Did I mention that Gilah and I had dinner at the Vatican last night with Monsignor Donati and His Holiness?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“His Holiness was quite pleased that the Church was able to play a small role in Ivan’s demise. He’s quite anxious it remain a secret, though. He doesn’t want any more dead bodies in his Basilica.”

“You can see his point,” said Gabriel.

“Absolutely,” Shamron agreed.

It was one of the many aspects of the affair that remained secret- the fact that Ivan’s children, after leaving Saint-Tropez, had been taken to an isolated priory high in the Maritime Alps. They had remained there for nearly a week-under Church protection and with the full knowledge and approval of the Supreme Pontiff-before boarding a CIA Gulfstream jet and flying clandestinely to the United States.

“Where are they?” Gabriel asked.

“Elena and the children?” Shamron dropped his cigarette and crushed it out. “I have no idea. And, quite frankly, I don’t want to know. She’s Adrian ’s problem now. Ivan has started more than divorce proceedings. He’s created a special unit within his personal security service with one job: finding Elena and the children. He wants his children back. He wants Elena dead.”

“What about Olga and Grigori?”

“Your friend Graham Seymour is hearing rumors of Russian assassins heading for British shores. Olga is locked away in a safe house outside London, surrounded by armed guards. Grigori is another story. He’s told Graham he can look after himself.”

“Did Graham agree to this?”

“Not entirely. He’s got Grigori under full-time watch.”

“Watchers? Watchers can’t protect anyone from a Russian assassin. Grigori should be surrounded by men with guns.”

“So should you.” Shamron didn’t bother trying to conceal his irritation. “If it were up to me, you’d be locked away someplace in Israel where Ivan would never think to look for you.”

“And you wonder why I’d rather be here.”

“Just don’t think about setting foot outside this estate. Not until Ivan’s had a chance to cool down.”

“Ivan doesn’t strike me as the sort to forget a grudge.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Perhaps we should just kill him now and get it over with.”

Shamron looked at the bandage on Gabriel’s eye. “Ivan can wait, my son. You have more important things to worry about.”

They had arrived at the stables. In an adjacent pen, a pair of pigs were rolling about in the mud. Shamron looked at the animals and winced in disgust.

“First a crucifix. Now pigs. What’s next?”

“We have our own chapel.”

Shamron ignited another cigarette. “I’m getting tired,” he said. “Let’s head back.”

They turned around and started toward the villa. Shamron produced an envelope from the breast pocket of his leather bomber jacket and handed it to Gabriel.

“It’s a letter from Elena,” Shamron said. “Adrian Carter had it couriered to Tel Aviv.”

“Did you read it?”

“Of course.”

Gabriel removed the letter and read it for himself.

“Are you up to it?” Shamron asked.

“I’ll know after the great unveiling.”

“Maybe Gilah and I should stay here for a few days, just in case things don’t go well.”

“What about Mozart and Pinter?”

“I’d rather be here”-he looked around theatrically-“with the pigs and the crucifixes.”

“Then we’d love to have you.”

“Do the staff really have no idea who you are?”

“They think I’m an eccentric restorer who suffers from melancholia and mood swings.”

Shamron placed his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “It sounds to me as if they know you quite well.”

73 VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA

The doctor came the following morning. Israeli by way of Queens, he wore a rabbinical beard and had the small soft hands of a baby. He removed the dressing from Gabriel’s eye, frowned heavily, and began snipping away the sutures.

“Let me know if anything I do hurts.”

“Trust me, you’ll be the first to know.”

He shone a light directly into Gabriel’s eye and frowned some more.

“How does it feel?”

“Like you’re burning a hole in my cornea.”

The doctor switched off the light.

“How does it feel now?”

“Like it’s covered in cotton wool and Vaseline.”

“Can you see?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

He covered Gabriel’s good eye. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Twelve.”

“Come on. How many?”

“Four, I think, but I can’t be sure.”

The doctor uncovered the good eye. He was holding up two fingers. He put some drops in the damaged eye that burned like battery acid and covered it with a black patch.

“I look like an idiot.”

“Not for long. Your retina looks remarkably good for what you’ve been through. You’re a very lucky man. Wear the patch on and off for a few days until your eye regains some of its strength. An hour on, an hour off. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

“Avoid bright lights. And don’t do anything that might give you unnecessary eyestrain.”

“How about painting?”

“Don’t even think about it. Not for at least three days.”

The doctor put his light and suture cutters back in his bag and pulled the zipper closed. Gabriel thanked him for coming all the way from Tel Aviv for a five-minute job. “Just don’t tell anyone you were here,” he added. “If you do, that angry-looking little man over there will kill you with his bare hands.”

The doctor looked at Shamron, who had managed to watch the entire proceeding without offering a single piece of advice.

“Is it true what they say about him? Was he really the one who kidnapped Eichmann?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Is it all right if I shake his hand? I want to touch the hands that grabbed hold of that monster.”

"It’s fine,” said Gabriel. “But be careful. He bites.”

He didn’t want to wear the patch, but even he had to admit he looked better with it on than off. The tissue around the eye was still distorted with swelling and the new scar was raw and hideous. “You’ll look like yourself eventually,” Chiara assured him. “But it’s going to take a while. You older men don’t heal as fast.”

The doctor’s optimism about the pace of his recovery turned out to be accurate. By the next morning, Gabriel’s vision had improved dramatically, and by the morning after it seemed almost normal. He felt ready to begin work on Elena’s request but confined his efforts to only one small task: the fabrication of a stretcher, 38 ¾ inches by 29 ¼ inches. When the stretcher was finished, he pulled a linen canvas over it and covered the canvas with a layer of ground. Then he placed the canvas on his easel and waited for it to dry.

He slept poorly that night and woke at four. He tried to fall asleep again, but it was no use, so he slipped out of bed and headed downstairs. He had always worked well in the early morning, and, despite his weakened eye, that morning was no exception. He applied the first layers of base paint, and by midday two small children were clearly visible on the canvas.

He took a break for lunch, then spent a second session before the canvas that lasted until dinner. He painted from memory, without even a photograph for reference, and with a swiftness and confidence he would not have thought possible a week earlier. Sometimes, when the house was quiet, he could almost feel her at his shoulder, whispering instructions into his ear. Watch your brushwork on the hands, she reminded him. Not too impasto on the hands. And sometimes, when his vision began to blur, he would see Elena chained to a chair in her husband’s warehouse of death, a gun pressed to the side of her head. You’d better pull the trigger, Arkady, because Ivan is never getting those children.

Chiara and the household staff knew better than to watch him while he worked, but Shamron and Gilah were unaware of his rules and were therefore never far from his back. Gilah’s visits were brief in duration, but Shamron, with nothing else to occupy his time, became a permanent fixture in Gabriel’s studio. He had always been mystified by Gabriel’s ability to paint-to Shamron, it was but a parlor trick or an illusion of some sort-and he was content now to sit silently at Gabriel’s side as he worked, even if it meant forgoing his cigarettes.

“I should have left you at Bezalel in ’seventy-two,” he said late one night. “I should have found someone else to execute those Black September murderers. You would have been one of the greatest artists of your generation, instead of-”

“Instead of what?”

“Instead of an eccentric old restorer with melancholia and mood swings who lives in a villa in the middle of Umbria surrounded by pigs and crucifixes.”

“I’m happy, Ari. I have Chiara.”

“Keep her close, Gabriel. Remember, Ivan likes to break pretty things.”

Gabriel laid down his brush, then stepped back and examined the painting for a long time, hand pressed to his chin, head tilted to one side. Chiara, who was watching from the top of the stairs, said, “Is it finished, Signore Vianelli?”

Gabriel was silent for a moment. “Yes,” he said finally. “I think it is finished.”

“What are you going to do about the signature?” Shamron asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“May I give you a small piece of artistic advice?”

“If you must.”

“Sign it with the name your mother gave you.”

He dipped the brush in black paint and signed the name Gabriel Allon in the bottom left corner.

“Do you think she’ll like it?”

“I’m sure she will. Is it finished now?”

“Not quite,” Gabriel said. “I have to bake it for thirty minutes.”

"I should have left you at Bezalel,” Shamron said. “You could have been great. ”