The Defector

1

PYOTR LUZHKOV was about to be killed, and for that he was grateful.

It was late October, but autumn was already a memory. It had been brief and unsightly, an old babushka hurriedly removing a threadbare frock. Now this: leaden skies, arctic cold, windblown snow. The opening shot of Russia ’s winter without end.

Pyotr Luzhkov, shirtless, barefoot, hands bound behind his back, was scarcely aware of the cold. In fact, at that moment he would have been hard-pressed to recall his name. He believed he was being led by two men through a birch forest but could not be certain. It made sense they were in a forest. That was the place Russians liked to do their blood work. Kurapaty, Bykivnia, Katyn, Butovo… Always in the forests. Luzhkov was about to join a great Russian tradition. Luzhkov was about to be granted a death in the trees.

There was another Russian custom when it came to killing: the intentional infliction of pain. Pyotr Luzhkov had been forced to scale mountains of pain. They had broken his fingers and his thumbs. They had broken his arms and his ribs. They had broken his nose and his jaw. They had beaten him even when he was unconscious. They had beaten him because they had been told to. They had beaten him because they were Russians. The only time they had stopped was when they were drinking vodka. When the vodka was gone, they had beaten him even harder.

Now he was on the final leg of his journey, the long walk to a grave with no marker. Russians had a term for it: vyshaya mera, the highest form of punishment. Usually, it was reserved for traitors, but Pyotr Luzhkov had betrayed no one. He had been duped by his master’s wife, and his master had lost everything because of it. Someone had to pay. Eventually, everyone would pay.

He could see his master now, standing alone amid the match-stick trunks of the birch trees. Black leather coat, silver hair, head like a tank turret. He was looking down at the large-caliber pistol in his hand. Luzhkov had to give him credit. There weren’t many oligarchs who had the stomach to do their own killing. But then there weren’t many oligarchs like him.

The grave had already been dug. Luzhkov’s master was inspecting it carefully, as if calculating whether it was big enough to hold a body. As Luzhkov was forced to kneel, he could smell the distinctive cologne. Sandalwood and smoke. The smell of power. The smell of the devil.

The devil gave him one more blow to the side of his face. Luzhkov didn’t feel it. Then the devil placed the gun to the back of Luzhkov’s head and bade him a pleasant evening. Luzhkov saw a pink flash of his own blood. Then darkness. He was finally dead. And for that he was grateful.

2

THE MURDER of Pyotr Luzhkov went largely unnoticed. No one mourned him; no women wore black for him. No Russian police officers investigated his death, and no Russian newspapers bothered to report it. Not in Moscow. Not in St. Petersburg. And surely not in the Russian city sometimes referred to as London. Had word of Luzhkov’s demise reached Bristol Mews, home of Colonel Grigori Bulganov, the Russian defector and dissident, he would not have been surprised, though he would have felt a pang of guilt. If Grigori hadn’t locked poor Pyotr in Ivan Kharkov’s personal safe, the bodyguard might still be alive.

Among the lords of Thames House and Vauxhall Cross, the riverfront headquarters of MI5 and MI6, Grigori Bulganov had always been a source of much fascination and considerable debate. Opinion was diverse, but then it usually was when the two services were forced to take positions on the same issue. He was a gift from the gods, sang his backers. He was a mixed bag at best, muttered his detractors. One wit from the top floor of Thames House famously described him as the defector Downing Street needed like a leaky roof-as if London, now home to more than a quarter million Russian citizens, had a spare room for another malcontent bent on making trouble for the Kremlin. The MI5 man had gone on the record with his prophecy that one day they would all regret the decision to grant Grigori Bulganov asylum and a British passport. But even he was surprised by the speed with which that day came.

A former colonel in the counterintelligence division of the Russian Federal Security Service, better known as the FSB, Grigori Bulganov had washed ashore late the previous summer, the unexpected by-product of a multinational intelligence operation against one Ivan Kharkov, Russian oligarch and international arms dealer. Only a handful of British officials were told the true extent of Grigori’s involvement in the case. Fewer still knew that, if not for his actions, an entire team of Israeli operatives might have been killed on Russian soil. Like the KGB defectors who came before him, Grigori vanished for a time into a world of safe houses and isolated country estates. A joint Anglo-American team hammered at him day and night, first on the structure of Ivan’s arms-trafficking network, for which Grigori had shamefully worked as a paid agent, then on the tradecraft of his former service. The British interrogators found him charming; the Americans less so. They insisted on fluttering him, which in Agencyspeak meant subjecting him to a lie-detector test. He passed with flying colors.

When the debriefers had had their fill, and it came time to decide just what to do with him, the bloodhounds of internal security conducted highly secret reviews and issued their recommendations, also in secret. In the end, it was deemed that Grigori, though reviled by his former comrades, faced no serious threat. Even the once-feared Ivan Kharkov, who was licking his wounds in Russia, was deemed incapable of concerted action. The defector made three requests: he wanted to keep his name, to reside in London, and to have no overt security. Hiding in plain sight, he argued, would give him the most protection from his enemies. MI5 readily agreed to his demands, especially the third. Security details required money, and the human resources could be put to better use elsewhere, namely against Britain ’s homegrown jihadist extremists. They bought him a lovely mews cottage in a backwater of Maida Vale, arranged a generous monthly stipend, and made a onetime deposit in a City bank that would surely have caused a scandal if the amount ever became public. An MI5 lawyer quietly negotiated a book deal with a respected London publisher. The size of the advance raised eyebrows among the senior staff of both services, most of whom were working on books of their own-in secret, of course.

For a time it seemed Grigori would turn out to be the rarest of birds in the intelligence world: a case without complications. Fluent in English, he took to life in London like a freed prisoner trying to make up for lost time. He frequented the theater and toured the museums. Poetry readings, ballet, chamber music: he did them all. He settled into work on his book and once a week lunched with his editor, who happened to be a porcelain-skinned beauty of thirty-two. The only thing missing in his life was chess. His MI5 minder suggested he join the Central London Chess Club, a venerable institution founded by a group of civil servants during the First World War. His application form was a master-piece of ambiguity. It supplied no address, no home telephone, no mobile, and no e-mail. His occupation was described as “translation services,” his employer as “self.” Asked to list any hobbies or outside interests, he had written “chess.”

But no high-profile case is ever entirely free of controversy-and the old hands warned they had never met a defector, especially a Russian defector, who didn’t lose a wheel from time to time. Grigori’s came off the day the British prime minister announced a major terrorist plot had been disrupted. It seemed al-Qaeda had planned to simultaneously shoot down several jet-liners using Russian-made antiaircraft missiles-missiles they had acquired from Grigori’s former patron, Ivan Kharkov. Within twenty-four hours, Grigori was seated before the cameras of the BBC, claiming he had played a major role in the affair. In the days and weeks that followed, he would remain a fixture on television, in Britain and elsewhere. His celebrity status now cemented, he began to move in Russian émigré circles and cavort with Russian dissidents of every stripe. Seduced by the sudden attention, he used his newfound fame as a platform to make wild accusations against his old service and against the Russian president, whom he characterized as a Hitler in the making. When the Kremlin responded with uncomfortable noises about Russians plotting a coup on British soil, Grigori’s minder suggested he tone things down. So, too, did his editor, who wanted to save something for the book.

Grudgingly, the defector lowered his profile, but only by a little. Rather than pick fights with the Kremlin, he focused his considerable energy on his forthcoming book and on his chess. That winter he entered the annual club tournament and moved effortlessly through his bracket-like a Russian tank through the streets of Prague, grumbled one of his victims. In the semifinals, he defeated the defending champion without breaking a sweat. Victory in the finals appeared inevitable.

On the afternoon of the championship, he lunched in Soho with a reporter from Vanity Fair magazine. Returning to Maida Vale, he purchased a house plant from the Clifton Nurseries and collected a parcel of shirts from his laundry in Elgin Avenue. After a brief nap, a prematch ritual, he showered and dressed for battle, departing his mews cottage a few minutes before six.

All of which explains why Grigori Bulganov, defector and dissident, was walking along London’s Harrow Road at 6:12 p.m., on the second Tuesday of January. For reasons that would be made clear later, he was moving at a faster pace than normal. As for chess, it was by then the last thing on his mind.

THE MATCH was scheduled for half past six at the club’s usual venue, the Lower Vestry House of St. George’s Church in Bloomsbury. Simon Finch, Grigori’s opponent, arrived at a quarter past. Shaking the rainwater from his oilskin coat, he squinted at a trio of notices tacked to the bulletin board in the foyer. One forbade smoking, another warned against blocking the corridor in case of fire, and a third, hung by Finch himself, pleaded with all those who used the premises to recycle their rubbish. In the words of George Mercer, club captain and six-time club champion, Finch was “a Camden Town crusty,” bedecked with all the required political convictions of his tribe. Free Palestine. Free Tibet. Stop the Genocide in Darfur. End the War in Iraq. Recycle or Die. The only cause Finch didn’t seem to believe in was work. He described himself as “a social activist and freelance journalist,” which Clive Atherton, the club’s reactionary treasurer, accurately translated as “layabout and sponge.” But even Clive was the first to admit that Finch possessed the loveliest of games: flowing, artistic, instinctive, and ruthless as a snake. “Simon’s costly education wasn’t a total waste,” Clive was fond of saying. “Just misapplied.”

His surname was a misnomer, for Finch was long and languid, with limp brown hair that hung nearly to his shoulders and wire-rimmed spectacles that magnified the resolute gaze of a revolutionary. To the bulletin board he added a fourth item now-a fawning letter from the Regent Hall Church thanking the club for hosting the first annual Salvation Army chess tournament for the homeless-then he drifted down the narrow corridor to the makeshift cloakroom, where he hung his coat on the rollaway rack. In the kitchenette, he deposited twenty pence in a giant piggy bank and drew a cup of tepid coffee from a silver canister marked CHESS CLUB. Young Tom Blakemore-a misnomer as well, for Young Tom was eighty-five in the shade-bumped into him as he was coming out. Finch seemed not to notice. Interviewed later by a man from MI5, Young Tom said he had taken no offense. After all, not a single member of the club gave Finch even an outside chance of winning the cup. “He looked like a man being led to the gallows,” said Young Tom. “The only thing missing was the black hood.”

Finch entered the storage cabinet and from a row of sagging shelves collected a board, a box of pieces, an analog tournament clock, and a score sheet. Coffee in one hand, match supplies carefully balanced in the other, he entered the vestry’s main room. It had walls the color of mustard and four grimy windows: three peering onto the pavements of Little Russell Street and a fourth squinting into the courtyard. On one wall, below a small crucifix, was the tournament bracket. One match remained to be played: S. FINCH VS. G. BULGANOV.

Finch turned and surveyed the room. Six trestle tables had been erected for the evening’s play, one reserved for the championship, the rest for ordinary matches-“friendlies,” in the parlance of the club. A devout atheist, Finch chose the spot farthest from the crucifix and methodically prepared for the contest. He checked the tip of his pencil and wrote the date and the board number on the score sheet. He closed his eyes and saw the match as he hoped it would unfold. Then, fifteen minutes after taking his seat, he looked up at the clock: 6:42. Grigori was late. Odd, thought Finch. The Russian was never late.

Finch began moving pieces in his mind-saw a king lying on its side in resignation, saw Grigori hanging his head in shame-and he watched the relentless march of the clock.

6:45… 6:51… 6:58…

Where are you, Grigori? he thought. Where the hell are you?

ULTIMATELY, Finch’s role would be minor and, in the opinion of all involved, mercifully brief. There were some who wanted to have a closer look at a few of his more deplorable political associations. There were others who refused to touch him, having rightly judged Finch to be a man who would relish nothing more than a good public spat with the security services. In the end, however, it would be determined his only crime was one of sports manship. Because at precisely 7:05 p.m.-the time recorded in his own hand on the official score sheet-he exercised his right to claim victory by forfeiture, thus becoming the first player in club history to win the championship without moving a single piece. It was a dubious honor, one the chess players of British intelligence would never quite forgive.

Ari Shamron, the legendary Israeli spymaster, would later say that never before had so much blood flowed from so humble a beginning. But even Shamron, who was guilty of the occasional rhetorical flourish, knew the remark was far from accurate. For the events that followed had their true origins not in Grigori’s disappearance but in a feud of Shamron’s own making. Grigori, he would confide to his most devoted acolytes, was but a shot over our complacent bow. A signal fire on a distant watchtower. And the bait used to lure Gabriel into the open.

By the following evening, the score sheet was in the possession of MI5, along with the entire tournament logbook. The Americans were informed of Grigori’s disappearance twenty-four hours later, but, for reasons never fully explained, British intelligence waited four long days before getting around to telling the Israelis. Shamron, who had fought in Israel ’s war of independence and loathed the British to this day, found the delay predictable. Within minutes he was on the phone to Uzi Navot giving him marching orders. Navot reluctantly obeyed. It was what Navot did best.

3

GUIDO RENI was a peculiar man, even for an artist. He was prone to bouts of anxiety, riddled with guilt over his repressed homosexuality, and so insecure about his talents he worked only behind the protective shroud of a mantle. He harbored an unusually intense devotion to the Virgin Mary but loathed women so thoroughly he would not allow them to touch his laundry. He believed witches were stalking him. His cheeks would flush with embarrassment at the mere sound of an obscenity.

Had he followed his father’s advice, Reni would have played the harpsichord. Instead, at the age of nine, he entered the studio of the Flemish master Denys Calvaert and embarked on a career as a painter. His apprenticeship complete, he left his home in Bo logna in 1601 and traveled to Rome, where he quickly won a commission from the pope’s nephew to produce an altarpiece, Crucifixion of St. Peter, for the Church of San Paolo alle Tre Fon tane. At the request of his influential patron, Reni took his inspiration from a work hanging in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Its creator, a controversial and erratic painter known as Caravaggio, was not flattered by Reni’s imitation and vowed to kill him if it ever happened again.

Before beginning work on Reni’s panel, the restorer had gone to Rome to view the Caravaggio again. Reni had obviously borrowed from his competitor-most strikingly, his technique of using chiaroscuro to infuse his figures with life and lift them dramatically from the background-but there were many differences between the paintings, too. Where Caravaggio had placed the inverted cross diagonally through the scene, Reni positioned it vertically and in the center. Where Caravaggio had shown the agonized face of Peter, Reni deftly concealed it. What struck the restorer most was Reni’s depiction of Peter’s hands. In Caravaggio’s altarpiece, they were already fastened to the cross. But in Reni’s portrayal, the hands were free, with the right stretched toward the apex. Was Peter reaching toward the nail about to be driven into his feet? Or was he pleading with God to be delivered from so terrible a death?

The restorer had been working on the painting for more than a month. Having removed the yellowed varnish, he was now engaged in the final and most important part of the restoration: retouching those portions damaged by time and stress. The altarpiece had suffered substantial losses in the four centuries since Reni had painted it-indeed, the midrestoration photos had sent the owners into a blue period of hysteria and recrimination. Under normal circumstances, the restorer might have spared them the shock of seeing the painting stripped to its true state, but these were hardly normal circumstances. The Reni was now in the possession of the Vatican. Because the restorer was considered one of the finest in the world-and because he was a personal friend of the pope and his powerful private secretary-he was allowed to work for the Holy See on a freelance basis and to select his own assignments. He was even permitted to conduct his restorations not in the Vatican ’s state-of-the-art conservation lab but at a secluded estate in southern Umbria.

Known as Villa dei Fiori, it lay fifty miles north of Rome, on a plateau between the Tiber and Nera rivers. There was a large cattle operation and an equestrian center that bred some of the finest jumpers in all of Italy. There were pigs no one ate, goats kept solely for entertainment value, and, in summer, fields filled with sunflowers. The villa itself stood at the end of a long gravel drive lined with towering umbrella pine. In the eleventh century it had been a monastery. There was still a small chapel and the remains of an oven where the monks had baked their daily bread. At the base of the house was a large swimming pool and a trellised garden where rosemary and lavender grew along walls of Etruscan stone. Everywhere there were dogs: a quartet of hounds that roamed the pastures, devouring fox and rabbit, and a pair of neurotic terriers that patrolled the perimeter of the stables with the fervor of holy warriors.

Though the villa was owned by a faded Italian nobleman named Count Gasparri, its day-to-day operations were overseen by a staff of four: Margherita, the young housekeeper; Anna, the gifted cook; Isabella, the ethereal half Swede who tended to the horses; and Carlos, an Argentine cowboy who tended the cattle, the crops, and the small vineyard. The restorer and the staff existed in something resembling a cold peace. They had been told he was an Italian named Alessio Vianelli, the son of an Italian diplomat who had lived abroad for much of his life. The restorer’s name was not Alessio Vianelli, nor was he the son of a diplomat, or even an Italian. His real name was Gabriel Allon, and he came from the Valley of Jezreel in Israel.

He was below average in height, perhaps five-eight, and had the spare physique of a cyclist. His face was high at the forehead and narrow at the chin, and his long bony nose looked as though it had been carved from wood. His eyes were a shocking shade of emerald green; his short dark hair was shot with gray at the temples. Entirely ambidextrous, he could paint equally well with either hand. At the moment, he was using his left. Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw it was nearly midnight. He debated whether to continue working. One more hour, he reckoned, and the background would be complete. Better to finish it now. The director of the Vatican Picture Gallery was keen to have the Reni on exhibit again by Holy Week, the annual springtime siege of pilgrims and tourists. Gabriel had pledged to do his utmost to meet the deadline but had made no firm promises. He was a perfectionist who viewed each assignment as a defense of his reputation. Known for the lightness of his touch, he believed a restorer should be a passing spirit, that he should come and go leaving no trace, only a painting returned to its original glory, the damage of the centuries undone.

His studio occupied what should have been the villa’s formal sitting room. Emptied of its furnishings, it contained nothing now but his supplies, a pair of powerful halogen lamps, and a small portable stereo. La Bohème issued from its speakers, the volume lowered to the level of a whisper. He was a man with many enemies, and, unlike Guido Reni, they were not figments of his imagination. It was why he listened to his music softly-and why he always carried a loaded Beretta 9mm pistol. The grip was stained with paint: a dab of Titian, a bit of Bellini, a drop of Ra phael and Veronese.

Despite the hour, he worked with energy and focus and managed to complete his work as the final notes of the opera faded into silence. He cleaned his brushes and palette, then reduced the power on the lamps. In the half-light, the background receded into darkness and the four figures glowed softly. Standing before the painting, one hand pressed to his chin, head tilted to one side, he planned his next session. In the morning he would begin work on the uppermost henchman, a figure in a red cap holding a spike in one hand and a mallet in the other. He felt a certain grim kinship with the executioner. In other lifetimes, concealed by other names, he had performed a similar service for his masters in Tel Aviv.

He switched off the lamps and climbed the stone steps to his room. The bed was empty; Chiara, his wife, had been in Venice for the last three days visiting her parents. They had endured long separations because of work, but this was the first of their own choosing. A loner by nature and obsessive in his work habits, Gabriel had expected her brief absence would be easy to bear. In truth, he had been miserable without her. He took a peculiar comfort in these feelings. It was normal for a happily married man to miss his wife. For Gabriel Allon-a child of Holocaust survivors, a gifted artist and restorer, an assassin and spy-life had been anything but normal.

He sat down on Chiara’s side of the bed and picked through the stack of reading material on her nightstand. Fashion magazines, journals on interior design, Italian editions of popular American murder mysteries, a book on child rearing-intriguing, he thought, since they were childless and, as far as he knew, weren’t expecting one. Chiara had begun carefully to broach the topic. Gabriel feared it would soon become a point of contention in their marriage. The decision to remarry had been torturous enough. The idea of having another child, even with a woman he loved as much as Chiara, was for the moment incomprehensible. His only son had been killed by a terrorist bomb in Vienna and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Leah, his first wife, had survived the explosion and resided now in a psychiatric hospital atop Mount Herzl, locked in a prison of memory and a body ravaged by fire. It was because of Gabriel’s work that his loved ones had suffered this fate. He had vowed he would never bring into the world another child who could be targeted by his enemies.

He slipped off his sandals and crossed the stone floor to the writing desk. An icon shaped like an envelope winked at him from the screen of the laptop computer. The message had arrived several hours ago. Gabriel had been doing his best not to think about it because he knew it could have come from only one place. Ignoring it forever, however, was not an option. Better to get it over with. Reluctantly, he clicked on the icon, and a line of gibberish appeared on the screen. Typing a password into the proper window, the encryption melted away, leaving a few words in clear text:

MALACHI REQUESTS MEETING. PRIORITY RESH.

Gabriel frowned. Malachi was the code word for the chief of Special Operations. Priority Resh was reserved for time-sensitive situations, usually those involving questions of life and death. He hesitated, then typed in a reply. It took just ninety seconds for the response to arrive:

MALACHI LOOKS FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.

Gabriel switched off the computer and climbed into the empty bed. Malachi looks forward to seeing you… He doubted that was the case, since he and Malachi were not exactly on speaking terms. Closing his eyes, he saw a hand reaching toward an iron spike. He tapped a brush against his palette and painted until he drifted into sleep. Then he painted some more.

4

TO TRAVERSE the road from the Villa dei Fiori to the hill town of Amelia is to see Italy in all its ancient glory and, Gabriel thought sadly, all its modern distress. He had resided in Italy for much of his adult life and had witnessed the country’s slow but methodical march toward oblivion. Evidence of decay was all around: governing institutions rife with corruption and incompetence; an economy too feeble to provide enough work for the young; once-glorious coastlines fouled by pollution and sewage. Somehow, these facts escaped the notice of the world’s travel writers, who churned out countless words each year extolling the virtue and beauty of Italian life. As for the Italians themselves, they had responded to their deteriorating state of affairs by marrying late, if at all, and having fewer children. Italy ’s birthrate was among the lowest in Western Europe, and more Italians were over the age of sixty than under twenty, a demographic milestone in human history. Italy was already a country of elderly people and was aging rapidly. If trends continued unabated, it would experience a decline in population not seen since the Great Plague.

Amelia, the oldest of Umbria ’s cities, had seen the last outbreak of Black Death and, in all likelihood, every one before it. Founded by Umbrian tribesmen long before the dawn of the Common Era, it had been conquered by Etruscans, Romans, Goths, and Lombards before finally being placed under the dominion of the popes. Its dun-colored walls were more than ten feet thick, and many of its ancient streets were navigable only on foot. Few Amelians sought refuge behind the safety of the walls any longer. Most resided in the new town, a graceless maze of drab apartment blocks and concrete shopping malls that spilled down the hill south of the city.

Its main street, Via Rimembranze, was the place where most Amelians passed their ample amounts of free time. In late afternoon, they strolled the pavements and congregated on street corners, trading in gossip and watching the traffic heading down the valley toward Orvieto. The mysterious tenant from the Villa dei Fiori was among their favorite topics of conversation. An outsider who conducted his affairs politely but with an air of standoffish ness, he was the subject of substantial mistrust and no small amount of envy. Rumors about his presence at the villa were stoked by the fact that the staff refused to discuss the nature of his work. He’s involved in the arts, they would respond evasively under questioning. He prefers to be left alone. A few of the old women believed him to be an evil spirit who had to be cast out of Amelia before it was too late. Some of the younger ones were secretly in love with the emerald-eyed stranger and flirted with him shamelessly on those rare occasions when he ventured into town.

Among his most ardent admirers was the girl who presided over the gleaming glass counter of Pasticceria Massimo. She wore the cateye spectacles of a librarian and a permanent smile of mild rebuke. Gabriel ordered a cappuccino and a selection of pastries and walked over to a table at the far end of the room. It was already occupied by a man with strawberry blond hair and the heavy shoulders of a wrestler. He was pretending to read a local newspaper-pretending, Gabriel knew, because Italian was not one of his languages.

“Anything interesting, Uzi?” Gabriel asked in German.

Uzi Navot glared at Gabriel for a few seconds before resuming his appraisal of the paper. “If I’m not mistaken, there seems to be some sort of political crisis in Rome,” he responded in the same language.

Gabriel sat in the empty seat. “The prime minister is involved in a rather messy financial scandal at the moment.”

“Another one?”

“Something to do with kickbacks on several large construction projects up north. Predictably, the opposition is demanding his resignation. He’s vowing to stay in office and fight it out.”

“Maybe it would be better if the Church were still running the place.”

“Are you proposing a reconstitution of the Papal States?”

“Better a pope than a playboy prime minister with shoe-polish hair. He’s raised corruption to an art form.”

“Our last prime minister had serious ethical shortcomings of his own.”

“That’s true. But fortunately, he isn’t the one protecting the country from its enemies. That job still belongs to King Saul Boulevard.”

King Saul Boulevard was the address of Israel ’s foreign intelligence service. The service had a long and deliberately misleading name that had very little to do with the true nature of its work. Those who worked there referred to it as “the Office” and nothing else.

The girl placed the cappuccino in front of Gabriel and a plate of pastries in the center of the table. Navot grimaced.

“What’s wrong, Uzi? Don’t tell me Bella has you on a diet again?”

“What makes you think I was ever off it?”

“Your expanding waistline.”

“We all can’t be blessed with your trim physique and high metabolism, Gabriel. My ancestors were plump Austrian Jews.”

“So why fight nature? Have one, Uzi-for the sake of your cover, if nothing else.”

Navot’s selection, a trumpet-shaped pastry filled with cream, disappeared in two bites. He hesitated, then chose one filled with sweet almond paste. It vanished in the time it took Gabriel to pour a packet of sugar into his coffee.

“I didn’t get a chance to eat on the plane,” Navot said sheepishly. “Order me a coffee.”

Gabriel asked for another cappuccino, then looked at Navot. He was staring at the pastries again.

“Go ahead, Uzi. Bella will never know.”

“That’s what you think. Bella knows everything.”

Bella had worked as an analyst on the Office’s Syria Desk before taking a professorship in Levantine history at Ben-Gurion University. Navot, a veteran agent-runner and covert operative schooled in the art of manipulation, was incapable of deceiving her.

“Is the rumor true?” Gabriel asked.

“What rumor is that?”

“The one about you and Bella getting married. The one about a quiet wedding by the sea in Caesarea with only a handful of close friends and family in attendance. And the Old Man, of course. There’s no way the chief of Special Ops could get married without Shamron’s blessing.”

Special Ops was the dark side of a dark service. It carried out the assignments no one else wanted, or dared, to do. Its operatives were executioners and kidnappers; buggers and blackmailers; men of intellect and ingenuity with a criminal streak wider than the criminals themselves; multilinguists and chameleons who were at home in the finest hotels and salons in Europe or the worst back alleys of Beirut and Baghdad. Navot had never managed to get over the fact he had been given command of the unit because Gabriel had turned it down. He was competence to Gabriel’s brilliance, caution to Gabriel’s occasional recklessness. In any other service, in any other land, he would have been a star. But the Office had always valued operatives like Gabriel, men of creativity unbound by orthodoxy. Navot was the first to admit he was a mere field hand, and he had spent his entire career toiling in Gabriel’s shadow.

“Bella wanted the Office personnel kept to a minimum.” Navot’s voice had little conviction. “She didn’t want the reception to look like a gathering of spies.”

“Is that why I wasn’t invited?”

Navot devoted several seconds to the task of brushing a few crumbs into a tiny hillock. Gabriel made a mental note of it. Office behaviorists referred to such obvious delaying tactics as displacement activity.

“Go ahead, Uzi. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

Navot swept the crumbs onto the floor with the back of his hand and looked at Gabriel for a moment in silence. “You weren’t invited to my wedding because I didn’t want you at my wedding. Not after that stunt you pulled in Moscow.”

The girl placed the coffee in front of Navot and, sensing tension, retreated behind her glass barricade. Gabriel peered out the window at a trio of old men moving slowly along the pavement, heavily bundled against the sharp chill. His thoughts, however, were of a rainy August evening in Moscow. He was standing in the tired little square opposite the looming Stalinist apartment block known as the House on the Embankment. Navot was squeezing the life out of his arm and speaking quietly into his ear. He was saying that the operation to steal the private files of Russian arms dealer Ivan Kharkov was blown. That Ari Shamron, their mentor and master, had ordered them to retreat to Sheremetyevo Airport and board a waiting flight to Tel Aviv. That Gabriel had no choice but to leave behind his agent, Ivan’s wife, to face a certain death.

“I had to stay, Uzi. It was the only way to get Elena back alive.”

“You disobeyed a direct order from Shamron and from me, your direct, if nominal, superior officer. And you put the lives of the entire team in danger, including your wife’s. How do you think that made me look to the rest of the division?”

“Like a sensible chief who kept his head while an operation was going down the tubes.”

“No, Gabriel. It made me look like a coward who was willing to let an agent die rather than risk his own neck and career.” Navot poured three packets of sugar into his coffee and gave it a single angry stir with a tiny silver spoon. “And you know something? They would be right to say that. Everything but the part about being a coward. I’m not a coward.”

“No one would ever accuse you of running from a fight, Uzi.”

“But I do admit to having well-honed survival instincts. One has to in this line of work, not only in the field but at King Saul Boulevard, too. Not all of us are blessed with your gifts. Some of us actually need a job. Some of us even have our sights set on a promotion.”

Navot tapped the spoon against the rim of his cup and placed it in the saucer. “I walked into a real storm when I got back to Tel Aviv that night. They scooped us up at the airport and drove us straight to King Saul Boulevard. By the time we arrived, you’d already been missing for several hours. The Prime Minister’s Office was calling every few minutes for updates, and Shamron was positively homicidal. It’s a good thing he was in London; otherwise, he would have killed me with his bare hands. The working assumption was that you were dead. And I was the one who had allowed it to happen. We sat there for hours and waited for word. It was a bad night, Gabriel. I never want to go through another one like it.”

“Neither do I, Uzi.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Navot looked at the scar near Gabriel’s right eye. “By dawn, we’d all but written you off. Then a communications clerk burst into the Operations Room and said you’d just called in on the flash line-from Ukraine, of all places. When we heard your voice for the first time, it was pandemonium. Not only had you made it out of Russia alive with Ivan Kharkov’s darkest secrets, but you’d brought along a carload of defectors, including Colonel Grigori Bulganov, the highest-ranking FSB officer to ever come across the wire. Not bad for an evening’s work. Moscow was among your finest hours. But for me, it will be a permanent stain on an otherwise clean record. And you put it there, Gabriel. That’s why you weren’t invited to my wedding.”

“I’m sorry, Uzi.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For putting you in a difficult position.”

“But not for refusing a direct order?”

Gabriel was silent. Navot shook his head slowly.

“You’re a smug bastard, Gabriel. I should have broken your arm in Moscow and dragged you to the car.”

“What do you want me to say, Uzi?”

“I want you to tell me it will never happen again.”

“And if it does?”

“First I’ll break your arm. Then I’ll resign as chief of Special Ops, which will leave them with no other option but to give you the job. And I know how much you want that.”

Gabriel raised his right hand. “Never again, Uzi-in the field, or anywhere else.”

“Say it.”

“I’m sorry for what transpired between us in Moscow. And I swear I’ll never disobey another direct order from you.”

Navot appeared instantly mollified. Personal confrontation had never been his strong suit.

“That’s it, Uzi? You came all the way to Umbria because you wanted an apology?”

“And a promise, Gabriel. Don’t forget the promise.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“Good.” Navot placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Because I want you to listen to me very carefully. We’re going to go back to your villa of flowers, and you’re going to pack your bags. Then we’re going to Rome to spend the night inside the embassy. Tomorrow morning, when the ten o’clock flight takes off from Fiumicino Airport for Tel Aviv, we’re going to be on it, second row of first class, side by side.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Because Colonel Grigori Bulganov is gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“I mean gone, Gabriel. No longer among us. Vanished into thin air. Gone.”

5

HOW LONG has he been missing?”

“About a week now.”

“Be specific, Uzi.”

“Colonel Grigori Bulganov was last spotted climbing into the back of a Mercedes sedan on Harrow Road at 6:12 p.m. on Tuesday evening.”

They were walking through the dying twilight, along a narrow cobblestone street in Amelia’s ancient center. Trailing a few paces behind was a pair of fawn-eyed bodyguards. It was a troubling sign. Navot usually traveled with only a bat leveyha, a female escort officer, for protection. The fact he had brought along two trained killers indicated he took the threat to Gabriel’s life seriously.

“When did the British get around to telling us?”

“They placed a quiet call to London Station on Saturday afternoon, four days after the fact. Because it was Shabbat, the duty officer was a kid who didn’t quite understand the significance of what he’d just been told. The kid tapped out a cable and sent it off to King Saul Boulevard at low priority. Fortunately, the duty officer on the European Desk did understand and immediately placed a courtesy call to Shamron.”

Gabriel shook his head. It had been years now since Shamron had done his last tour as chief, yet the Office was still very much his private fiefdom. It was filled with officers like Gabriel and Navot, men who had been recruited and groomed by Shamron, men who operated by a creed, even spoke a language, written by him. In Israel, Shamron was known as the Memuneh, the one in charge, and he would remain so until the day he finally decided the country was safe enough for him to die.

“And I assume Shamron then called you,” Gabriel said.

“He did, though it was distinctly lacking in courtesy of any kind. He told me to send you a message. Then he told me to grab a couple of boys and get on a plane. This seems to be my lot in life-the dutiful younger son who is dispatched into the wilderness every few months to track down his wayward older brother.”

“Was Grigori under surveillance when he got into the car?”

“Apparently not.”

“So how are the British so certain about what happened?”

“Their little electronic helpers were watching.”

Navot was referring to CCTV, the ubiquitous network of ten thousand closed-circuit television cameras that gave London ’s Metropolitan Police the ability to monitor activity, criminal or otherwise, on virtually every street in the British capital. A recent government study had concluded that the system had failed in its primary objective: deterring crime and apprehending criminals. Only three percent of street robberies were solved using CCTV technology, and crime rates in London were soaring. Embarrassed police officials explained away the failure by pointing out that the criminals had accounted for the cameras by adjusting their tactics, such as wearing masks and hats to conceal their identities. Apparently, no one in charge had considered that possibility before spending hundreds of millions of pounds and invading the public’s privacy on an unprecedented scale. The subjects of the United Kingdom, birthplace of Western democracy, now resided in an Orwellian world where their every movement was watched over by the eyes of the state.

“When did the British discover he was gone?” Gabriel asked.

“Not until the following morning. He was supposed to check in by telephone each night at ten. When he didn’t call on Tuesday, his minder wasn’t overly concerned. Grigori played chess every Tuesday night at a little club in Bloomsbury. Last Tuesday was the championship of his club’s annual tournament. Grigori was expected to win easily.”

“I never knew he played.”

“I guess he never had a chance to mention it during that evening you spent together in the interrogation rooms of Lubyanka. He was too busy trying to figure out how a midlevel functionary from the Israeli Ministry of Culture had managed to disarm and kill a pair of Chechen assassins.”

“As I recall, Uzi, I wouldn’t have been in the stairwell if it wasn’t for you and Shamron. It was one of those little in-and-out jobs you two are always dreaming up. The kind that are supposed to go smoothly. The kind where no one is supposed to get hurt. But it never seems to work out that way.”

“Some men are born great. Others just get all the great assignments from King Saul Boulevard.”

“Assignments that get them thrown into the cells in the basement of Lubyanka. And if it wasn’t for Colonel Grigori Bulganov, I would have never walked out of that place alive. He saved my life, Uzi. Twice.”

“I remember,” Navot said sardonically. “We all remember.”

“Why didn’t the British tell us sooner?”

“They thought it was possible Grigori had simply strayed off the reservation. Or that he was shacked up with some girl in a little seaside hotel. They wanted to be certain he was missing before pulling the fire alarm. He’s gone, Gabriel. And the last place on earth they can account for him is that car. It’s as if it was a portal to oblivion.”

“I’m sure it was. Do they have a theory yet?”

“They do. And I’m afraid you’re not going to like it. You see, Gabriel, the mandarins of British intelligence have concluded that Colonel Grigori Bulganov has redefected.”

“Redefected? You can’t be serious.”

“I am. What’s more, they’ve convinced themselves he was a double agent all along. They believe he came to the West to spoon-feed us a load of Russian crap and to gather information on the Russian dissident community in London. And now, having succeeded, he’s flown the coop and returned home to a hero’s welcome. And guess whom they blame for this catastrophe?”

“The person who brought Grigori to the West in the first place.”

“That’s correct. They blame you.”

“How convenient. But Grigori Bulganov is no more a Russian double agent than I am. The British have concocted this ludicrous theory in order to shift the blame for his disappearance from their shoulders, where it belongs, to mine. He should never have been allowed to live openly in London. I couldn’t turn on the BBC or CNN International last fall without seeing his face.”

“So what do you think happened to him?”

“He was killed, Uzi. Or worse.”

“What could be worse than being taken out by a Russian hit team?”

“Being kidnapped by Ivan Kharkov.” Gabriel stopped walking and turned to face Navot in the empty street. “But then you already know that, Uzi. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

6

THEY CLIMBED the winding streets to the piazza at the highest point of the city and looked down at the lights glowing like bits of topaz and garnet on the valley floor. The two bodyguards waited on the opposite side of the square, well out of earshot. One held a cell phone to his ear; the other, a lighter to a cigarette. When Gabriel glimpsed the flame, an image flashed in his memory. He was riding through the misty plains of western Russia at dawn in the front passenger seat of a Volga sedan, his head throbbing, his right eye blinded by a crude dressing. Two beautiful women slept like small children in the backseat. One was Olga Sukhova, Russia ’s most famous opposition journalist. The other was Elena Kharkov, wife of Ivan Borisovich Kharkov: oligarch, arms dealer, murderer. Seated behind the wheel, a cigarette burning between his thumb and forefinger, was Grigori Bulganov. He was speaking softly so as not to wake the women, his eyes fixed on a Russian road without end.

Do you know what we do with traitors, Gabriel? We take them into a small room and make them kneel. Then we shoot them in the back of the head with a large-caliber handgun. We make certain the round exits the face so there’s nothing left for the family to see. Then we throw the body in an unmarked grave. Many things have changed in Russia since the fall of Communism. But the punishment for betrayal remains the same. Promise me one thing, Gabriel. Promise me I won’t end up in an unmarked grave.

Gabriel heard a sudden rustle of wings and, looking up, saw a squadron of warring rooks wheeling around the piazza’s Romanesque campanile. The next voice he heard was Uzi Navot’s.

“You can be sure of one thing, Gabriel. The only person Ivan Kharkov wants dead more than Grigori is you. And who could blame him? First you stole his secrets. Then you stole his wife and children.”

“I didn’t steal anything. Elena offered to defect. I just helped her.”

“I doubt Ivan sees it that way. And neither does the Memuneh. The Memuneh believes Ivan is back in business. The Memuneh believes Ivan has made his first move.”

Gabriel was silent. Navot turned up the collar of his overcoat.

“You may recall that we were picking up reports last autumn about a special unit Ivan had created within his personal security service. That unit was given a simple assignment. Find Elena, get back his children, and kill everyone who participated in the operation against him. We allowed ourselves to be lulled into thinking that Ivan had cooled off. Grigori’s disappearance suggests otherwise.”

“Ivan will never find me, Uzi. Not here.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on that?”

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

“That’s five people too many.” Navot laid a large hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. Whether Grigori Bulganov left London voluntarily or at the point of a Russian pistol is of little or no consequence. You’re compromised, Gabriel. And you’re leaving here tonight.”

“I’ve been compromised before. Besides, Grigori has no knowledge of my cover or where I’m living. He can’t betray me, and Shamron knows it. He’s using Grigori’s disappearance as his latest excuse to get me back to Israel. Once I’m there, he’ll lock me away in solitary confinement. And I’m sure when my defenses are at their weakest, he’ll offer me a way out. I’ll be the director, and you’ll be in charge of Special Ops. And Shamron will be able to finally die in peace, knowing that his two favorite sons are finally in control of his beloved Office.”

“That might be Shamron’s overall strategy, but for the moment he’s only concerned about your safety. He has no ulterior motives.”

“Shamron is ulterior motives personified, Uzi. And so are you.”

Navot removed his hand from Gabriel’s shoulder. “I’m afraid this isn’t a debate, Gabriel. You might be the boss one day, but for now I’m ordering you to leave Italy and come home. You’re not going to disobey another order, are you?”

Gabriel made no reply.

“You have too many enemies to be alone in the world, Gabriel. You might think your friend the pope will look after you, but you’re wrong. You need us as much as we need you. Besides, we’re the only family you’ve got.”

Navot gave a shrewd smile. The countless hours he had spent in the executive conference rooms of King Saul Boulevard had significantly sharpened his debating skills. He was now a formidable opponent, one who had to be handled with care.

“I’m working on a painting,” Gabriel said. “I can’t leave until it’s finished.”

“How long?” Navot asked.

Three months, thought Gabriel. Then he said, “Three days.”

Navot sighed. He oversaw a unit consisting of several hundred highly skilled operatives but only one whose movements were dictated by the fickle rhythms of restoring Old Master paintings.

“I take it your wife is still in Venice?”

“She’s coming back tonight.”

“She should have told me she was going to Venice before she left. You might be a private contractor, Gabriel, but your wife is a full-time employee of Special Ops. As such, she is required to keep her supervisor, me, abreast of all her movements, personal and professional. Perhaps you would be good enough to remind her of that fact.”

“I’ll try, Uzi, but she never listens to a thing I say.”

Navot glared at his wristwatch. A large stainless steel device, it did everything except keep accurate time. It was a newer version of the one worn by Shamron, which is why Navot had bought it in the first place.

“I have some business in Paris and Brussels. I’ll be back here in three days to pick up you and Chiara. We’ll go back to Israel together.”

“I’m sure we can find the airport by ourselves, Uzi. We’re both well trained.”

“That’s what concerns me.” Navot turned around and looked at the bodyguards. “And by the way, they’re staying here with you. Think of them as heavily armed houseguests.”

“I don’t need them.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Navot said.

“I assume they don’t speak Italian.”

“They’re settler boys from Judea and Samaria. They barely speak English.”

“So how am I supposed to explain them to the staff?”

“That’s not my problem.” Navot held a trio of thick fingers in front of Gabriel’s face. “You have three days to finish that damn painting. Three days. Then you and your wife are going home.”

7

GABRIEL’S STUDIO was in semidarkness, the altarpiece shrouded by gloom. He attempted to walk past it but could not-as always, the pull of a work in progress was far too strong. Switching on a single halogen lamp, he gazed at the pale hand reaching toward the apex of the panel. For an instant, it belonged not to Saint Peter but to Grigori Bulganov. And it was reaching not toward God but toward Gabriel.

Promise me one thing, Gabriel. Promise me I won’t end up in an unmarked grave.

The vision was disturbed by the sound of singing. Gabriel switched off the lamp and climbed the stone steps to his room. The bed, unmade when he left, now looked as if it had been prepared for a photo shoot by a professional stylist. Chiara was executing one final adjustment to a pair of decorative pillows, two useless disks trimmed in white lace that Gabriel always hurled on the floor before climbing between the sheets. An overnight bag lay at the foot, along with a Beretta 9mm. Gabriel placed the weapon in the top drawer of the nightstand and lowered the volume on the radio.

Chiara looked up, as if surprised by his presence. She was wearing faded blue jeans, a beige sweater, and suede boots that added two inches to her tall frame. Her riotous dark hair was constrained by a clasp at the nape of her neck and pulled forward over one shoulder. Her caramel-colored eyes were a shade darker than normal. It was not a good sign. Chiara’s eyes were a reliable barometer of her mood.

“I didn’t hear you drive up.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t play the radio so loudly.”

“Why didn’t Margherita make the bed?”

“I told her not to come in here while you were away.”

“And of course you couldn’t be bothered.”

“I couldn’t find the instructions.”

She gave him a slow shake of the head to show her disappointment. “If you can restore Old Master paintings, Gabriel, you can make a bed. What did you do when you were a boy?”

“My mother tried to force me.”

“And?”

“I slept on top of the bedding.”

“No wonder Shamron recruited you.”

“Actually, the Office psychologists found it revelatory. They said it displayed a spirit of independence and the ability to solve problems.”

“So is that why you refuse to make it now? Because you want to demonstrate your independence?”

Gabriel answered her with a kiss. Her lips were very warm.

“How was Venice?”

“Almost bearable. When the weather is cold and rainy, it’s almost possible to imagine Venice is still a real city. The Piazza di San Marco is overrun with tourists, of course. They drink their ten-euro cups of cappuccino and pose for photographs with those awful pigeons. Tell me, Gabriel, what kind of holiday is that?”

“I thought the mayor drove the birdseed vendors out of business.”

“The tourists feed them anyway. If they love the pigeons so much, maybe they should take them home as souvenirs. Do you know how many tourists came to Venice this year?”

“Twenty million.”

“That’s right. If each person took just one of those filthy birds, the problem would be solved within a few months.”

It was odd to hear Chiara speak so harshly of Venice. Indeed, there was a time, not so long ago, when she would have never imagined a life outside the picturesque canals and narrow alleyways of her native city. The daughter of the city’s chief rabbi, she had spent her childhood in the insular world of the ancient ghetto, leaving just long enough to earn a master’s degree in history from the University of Padua. She returned to Venice after graduation and took a job at the small Jewish museum in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, and there she might have remained forever had she not been noticed by an Office talent spotter during a visit to Israel. The talent spotter introduced himself in a Tel Aviv coffeehouse and asked Chiara whether she was interested in doing more for the Jewish people than working in a museum in a dying ghetto. Chiara said she was and vanished into the secretive training program of the Office.

A year later she resumed her old life, this time as an undercover agent of Israeli intelligence. Among her first assignments was to covertly watch the back of a wayward Office assassin named Gabriel Allon, who had come to Venice to restore Bellini’s San Zaccaria altarpiece. She revealed herself to him a short time later in Rome, after an incident involving gunplay and the Italian police. Trapped alone with Chiara in a safe flat, Gabriel had wanted desperately to touch her. He had waited until the case was resolved and they had returned to Venice. There, in a canal house in Cannaregio, they made love for the first time, in a bed prepared with fresh linen. It was like making love to a figure painted by the hand of Veronese. Now that same figure frowned as he removed his leather jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. She made a vast show of hanging it in the closet, then unzipped her overnight bag and began removing the contents. All the clothing was clean and painstakingly folded.

“My mother insisted on doing my laundry before I left.”

“She doesn’t think we have a washing machine?”

“She’s a Venetian, Gabriel. She doesn’t believe it’s proper for a girl to live on a farm. Pastures and livestock make her nervous.” Chiara began placing the clean clothing in her dresser drawers. “So why weren’t you here when I arrived?”

“I had a meeting.”

“A meeting? In Amelia? With whom?”

Gabriel told her.

“I thought you two weren’t speaking.”

“We’ve agreed to let bygones be bygones.”

“How lovely,” Chiara said coldly. “Did my name come up?”

“Uzi’s miffed at you for failing to tell the desk that you were going to Venice.”

“It was private.”

“You know there’s no such thing as private when you work for the Office.”

“Why are you taking his side?”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side. It was a simple statement of fact.”

“Since when have you ever given a damn about Office rules and regulations? You do whatever you want, whenever you want, and no one dares to lay a finger on you.”

“And Uzi gives you plenty of preferential treatment because you’re married to me.”

“I’m still angry with him for leaving you behind in Moscow.”

“It wasn’t Uzi’s fault, Chiara. He tried to make me leave, but I wouldn’t listen.”

“And you almost got yourself killed as a result. You would have been killed if it wasn’t for Grigori.” She lapsed into silence for a moment while she refolded two items of clothing. “Did you two have something to eat?”

“Uzi devoured about a hundred pastries at Massimo. I had coffee.”

“How’s his weight?”

“He seems to be carrying some postnuptial happy pounds.”

“You never gained any weight after we were married.”

“I suppose that means I’m deeply unhappy.”

“Are you?”

“Don’t be silly, Chiara.”

She slipped a thumb inside the waistband of her blue jeans. “I think I’m gaining weight.”

“You look beautiful.”

She frowned. “You’re not supposed to say I look beautiful. You’re supposed to reassure me that I’m not gaining weight.”

“Your shirt is fitting you a little more tightly than normal.”

“It’s Anna’s cooking. If I keep eating like this, I’m going to look like one of those old ladies in town. Maybe I should just buy a black frock now and get it over with.”

“I gave her the night off. I thought it might be nice to be alone for a change.”

“Thank God. I’ll make you something to eat. You’re too thin.” Chiara closed the dresser drawer. “So what brought Uzi to town?”

“He’s making his semiannual tour of European assets. Patting backs. Showing the flag.”

“Do I detect a slight bit of resentment in your voice?”

“Why on earth would I be resentful?”

“Because you should be the one making the grand tour of our European assets instead of Uzi.”

“Traveling isn’t what it once was, Chiara. Besides, I didn’t want the job.”

“But you’ve never been comfortable with the fact that they gave it to Uzi when you turned it down. You don’t think he has the intellect or the creativity for it.”

“Shamron and his acolytes at King Saul Boulevard disagree. And if I were you, Chiara, I’d stay on Uzi’s good side. He’s likely to be the director one day.”

“Not after Moscow. According to the rumor mill, Uzi was lucky to keep his job.” She sat at the edge of the bed and made a halfhearted effort to remove her right boot. “Help me,” she said, extending her foot toward Gabriel. “It won’t budge.”

Gabriel took hold of the boot by the toe and the heel and it slid easily off her foot. “Maybe you should try pulling on it next time.”

“You’re much stronger than I am.” She raised her other leg. “So how long are you planning to make me wait this time, Gabriel?”

“Before what?”

“Before telling me why Uzi came all the way to Umbria to see you. And why two Office bodyguards followed you home.”

“I thought you didn’t hear me arrive.”

“I was lying.”

Gabriel slipped off Chiara’s second boot.

“Don’t ever lie to me, Chiara. Bad things happen when lovers tell lies.”

8

MAY BE THE British are right. Maybe Grigori did redefect.”

“And maybe Guido Reni will show up here later tonight to help me finish his altarpiece.”

Chiara plucked an egg from its carton and expertly broke it one-handed into a glass mixing bowl. She was standing at an island in the center of the villa’s rustic kitchen. Gabriel was opposite, perched atop a wooden stool, a glass of Umbrian merlot in his hand.

“You’re going to kill me with those eggs, Chiara.”

“Drink your wine. If you drink wine, you can eat as many as you like.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“It’s true. Why do you think we Italians live forever?”

Gabriel did as she suggested and drank some of his wine. Chiara cracked another egg against the side of the bowl, but this time a fragment of shell lodged in the yoke. Annoyed, she delicately removed it with the tip of her fingernail and flicked it into the rubbish bin.

“What are you making, anyway?”

“Frittata with potato and onion and spaghetti alla carbonara di zucchine.”

She turned her attention to the trio of pots and pans spattering and bubbling on the antiquated range. Blessed with a Venetian’s natural sense of aesthetics, she brought artistry to all things, especially food. Her meals, like her beds, seemed too perfect to disturb. Gabriel often wondered why she had ever been attracted to a scarred and broken relic like him. Perhaps she viewed him as a tired room in need of redecoration.

“Anna could have left us something to eat other than eggs and cheese.”

“You think she’s trying to kill you by clogging your arteries with cholesterol?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. She detests me.”

“Try being nice to her.”

A strand of stray hair had escaped the restraint of Chiara’s clasp and fallen against her cheekbone. She tucked it behind her ear and treated Gabriel to a puckish smile.

“It seems to me you have a choice,” she said. “A choice about your future. A choice about your life.”

“I’m not good at making decisions about life.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that. I remember a certain afternoon in Jerusalem not long ago. I’d grown weary of waiting for you to marry me, and so I’d finally worked up the nerve to leave you. When I got into that car outside your apartment, I kept waiting for you to chase after me and beg me to stay. But you didn’t. You were probably relieved I was the one walking out. It was easier that way.”

“I was a fool, Chiara, but that’s ancient history.”

She speared a piece of potato from the frying pan, tasted it, then added a bit more salt. “I knew it was Leah, of course. You were still married to her.” Chiara paused, then added softly, “And you were still in love with her.”

“What does any of this have to do with the situation at hand?”

“You are a man who takes vows seriously, Gabriel. You took a vow to Leah and you couldn’t break it, even though she no longer lived in the present. You took an oath to the Office as well. And you can’t seem to break that one, either.”

“I’ve given them more than half my life.”

“So what are you going to do? Give them the rest of it? Do you want to end up like Shamron? He’s eighty years old, and he can’t sleep at night because he’s worried about the security of the State. He sits on his terrace at night on the Sea of Galilee staring off to the east, watching his enemies.”

“There wouldn’t be an Israel if it weren’t for men like Shamron. He was there at the creation. And he doesn’t want to see his life’s work destroyed.”

“There are plenty of qualified men and women who can look after Israel ’s security.”

“Try telling that to Shamron.”

“Trust me, Gabriel. I have.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“Leave them-for good this time. Restore paintings. Live your life.”

“Where?”

She raised her arms to indicate that the present surroundings would do nicely indeed.

“This is a temporary arrangement. Eventually, the count is going to want his villa back again.”

“We’ll find a new one. Or we’ll move to Rome so you can be closer to the Vatican. The Italians will let you live wherever you like, so long as you don’t abuse that passport and new identity they generously gave you for saving the pope’s life.”

“Uzi says I’ll never have the nerve to walk away for good. He says the Office is the only family I’ve got.”

“Start a new family, Gabriel.” Chiara paused. “With me.”

She tasted a piece of zucchini and switched off the burner. Turning around, she saw Gabriel gazing at her intently with one hand pressed thoughtfully to his chin.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what, Chiara?”

“Like I’m one of your paintings.”

“I’m just wondering why you left that book about child rearing in our room where you knew I would see it. And why you haven’t taken a single sip of the wine I poured for you.”

“I have.”

“You haven’t, Chiara. I’ve been watching.”

“You just didn’t see me.”

“Take one now.”

“Gabriel! What’s got into you?” She lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip. “Are you satisfied?”

He wasn’t. “Are you pregnant, Chiara?”

“No, Gabriel, I’m not pregnant. But I would like to be at some point in the near future.” She took hold of his hand. “I know you’re afraid because of what happened to Dani. But the best way to honor his memory is to have another child. We’re Jews, Gabriel. That’s what we do. We mourn the dead and keep them in our hearts. But we live our lives.”

“With names that are not our own, stalked by men who wish to kill us.”

Chiara gave an exasperated sigh and cracked another egg against the side of the mixing bowl. This time, the shell broke to pieces in her hand.

“Now look what you’ve made me do.” She mopped up the egg with a paper towel. “You have three days until Uzi comes back. What do you intend to do?”

“I need to go to London to find out what really happened to Grigori Bulganov.”

“Grigori isn’t your problem. Let the British handle it.”

“The British have bigger problems than one missing defector. They’ve swept Grigori under the rug. They’ve moved on.”

“And so should you.” Chiara added one more egg to the bowl and began beating. “Russians have long memories, Gabriel-almost as long as the Arabs. Ivan lost everything after Elena defected: his homes in England and France and all those bank accounts in London and Zurich filled with his dirty money. He’s the subject of an Interpol Red Notice and can’t set foot outside of Russia. He has nothing else to do except plot your death. And if you go to London and start poking around, there’s a good chance he’ll find out about it.”

“So I’ll do it quietly, then I’ll come home. And we’ll get on with our lives.”

Chiara’s arm went still. “You tell lies for a living, Gabriel. I hope you’re not lying to me now.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Chiara. And I never will.”

“What are you going to do about the bodyguards?”

“They’ll stay here with you.”

“Uzi’s not going to be happy.”

Gabriel held his wine to the light. “Uzi’s never happy.”

9

VILLA DEI FIORI • LONDON

THE OFFICE had a motto: By way of deception, thou shalt do war. The deception was usually visited upon Israel ’s enemies. Occasionally, it was necessary to deceive one’s own. Gabriel was sorry for them; they were good boys, with bright futures. They had just drawn the wrong assignment at the wrong time.

Their names were Lior and Motti-Lior being the older and more experienced of the pair, Motti a youthful probationer barely a year out of the Academy. Both boys had studied the exploits of the legend and had leapt at the opportunity to escort him safely back to Israel. Unlike Uzi Navot, they viewed the three additional days of duty at the beautiful villa in Umbria as a windfall. And when Chiara asked them to tread lightly so that Gabriel might finish his painting before returning home, they agreed without protest. They were simply honored to be in his presence. They would stand a distant post.

They spent that night in the drafty little guest cottage, sleeping in shifts and keeping a careful watch on the window of his studio, which was aglow with a searing white light. If they listened carefully, they could just make out the faint sound of music-first Tosca, then Madame Butterfly, and finally, as dawn was breaking over the estate, La Bohème. As the villa stirred to life around eight, they wandered up to the kitchen and found three women-Chiara, Anna, Margherita-sharing breakfast around the island. The door to the sitting room was tightly closed, and two vigilant hounds were curled on the floor before it. Accepting a bowl of steaming coffee, Lior wondered whether it might be possible to have a look at him. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” Chiara said sotto voce. “He tends to get a bit grouchy when he’s on deadline.” Lior, the child of a writer, understood completely.

The bodyguards spent the remainder of that day trying to keep themselves occupied. They went out on the odd reconnaissance mission and had a pleasant lunch with the staff, but for the most part they remained prisoners of their little stucco bunker. Every few hours, they would poke their heads inside the main villa to see if they could catch just a glimpse of the legend. Instead, they saw only the closed doors, watched over by the hounds. “He’s working at a feverish pace,” Chiara explained late that afternoon, when Lior again screwed up the courage to request permission to enter the studio. “There’s no telling what will happen if you disturb him. Trust me, it’s not for the faint of heart.”

And so they returned to their outpost like good soldiers and sat outside on the little veranda as night began to fall. And they stared despondently at the white light and listened to the faint sound of music. And they waited for the legend to emerge from his cave. At six o’clock, having seen no evidence of him since the previous evening, they reached the conclusion that they had been duped. They didn’t dare enter his studio to confirm their suspicions. Instead, they spent several minutes quarreling over who should break the news to Uzi Navot. In the end, it was Lior, the older and more experienced of the two, who placed the call. He was a good boy with a bright future. He had just drawn the wrong assignment at the wrong time.

THERE WERE far worse places for a grounded defector to spend his final days than Bristol Mews. It was reached by a passageway off Bristol Gardens, flanked on one side by a Pilates exercise studio that promised to strengthen and empower its clients and on the other by a disconsolate little restaurant called D Place. Its courtyard was long and rectangular, paved with gray cobblestone and trimmed in red brick. The spire of St. Saviour Church peered into it from the north, the windows of a large terrace house from the east. The door of the tidy little cottage at No. 8, like its neighbor at No. 7, was painted a cheerful shade of bright yellow. The shades were drawn in the ground-floor window. Even so, Gabriel could see a light burning from within.

He had arrived in London in midafternoon, having flown to the British capital directly from Rome using a false Italian passport and a ticket purchased for him by a friend at the Vatican. After performing a routine check for surveillance, he had entered a phone box near Oxford Circus and dialed from memory a number that rang inside Thames House, headquarters of MI5. As instructed, he had called back thirty minutes later and had been given an address, No. 8 Bristol Mews, along with a time: 7 p.m. It was now approaching 7:30. His tardiness was intentional. Gabriel Allon never arrived anywhere at the time he was expected.

Gabriel reached for the bell, but before he could press it, the door retreated. Standing in the entrance hall was Graham Seymour, MI5’s deputy director. He wore a perfectly fitted suit of charcoal gray and a burgundy necktie. His face was fine boned and even featured, and his hair had a rich silvery cast to it that made him look like a male model one sees in ads for costly but needless trinkets-the sort who wears expensive wristwatches, writes with expensive fountain pens, and spends his summers sailing the Greek islands aboard a custom-made yacht filled with younger women. Everything about Seymour spoke of confidence and composure. Even his handshake was a weapon designed to demonstrate to its recipient that he had met his match. It said Seymour had gone to the better schools, belonged to the better clubs, and was still a force to be reckoned with on the tennis court. It said he was not to be taken lightly. And it had the added benefit of being true. All but the tennis. In recent years, a back injury had diminished his skills. Though still quite good, Seymour had decided he was not good enough and had retired his racquet. Besides, the demands of his job were such that he had little time for recreation. Graham Seymour had the unenviable task of keeping the United Kingdom safe in a dangerous world. It was not a job Gabriel would want. The sun may have set on the British Empire long ago, but the world’s revolutionaries, exiles, and outcasts still seemed to find their way to London.

“You’re late,” Seymour said.

“The traffic was miserable.”

“You don’t say.”

Seymour snapped the dead bolt into place and led Gabriel into the kitchen. Small but recently renovated, it had sparkling German appliances and Italian marble counters. Gabriel had seen many like it in the home-design magazines Chiara was always reading. “Lovely,” he said, looking around theatrically. “Makes one wonder why Grigori would want to leave all this to go back to dreary Moscow.”

Gabriel opened the refrigerator and looked inside. The contents left little doubt that the owner was a man of middle age who did not entertain often, especially not women. On one shelf was a tin of salted herring and an open jar of tomato sauce; on another, a lump of pâté and a wedge of very ripe Camembert cheese. The freezer contained only vodka. Gabriel closed the door and looked at Seymour, who was peering into the filter basket of the coffeemaker, his nose wrinkled in disgust. “I suppose we really should get someone in here to clean up.” He emptied the coffee filter into the rubbish bin and gestured toward the small café-style table. “I’d like to show you something. It should put to rest any questions you have about Grigori and his allegiances.”

The table was empty except for an attaché case with combination locks. Seymour manipulated the tumblers with his thumbs and simultaneously popped the latches. From inside he removed two items: a portable DVD player of Japanese manufacture and a single disk in a clear plastic case. He powered on the device and loaded the disk into the drawer. Fifteen seconds later, an image appeared on the screen: Grigori Bulganov, sheltering from a gentle rain at the entranceway of Bristol Mews.

In the bottom left of the image was the location of the CCTV camera that had captured the image: BRISTOL GARDENS. In the top right was the date, the tenth of January, and beneath the date was the time: 17:47:39 and counting. Grigori was now lighting a cigarette, cupping the flame in his left hand. Returning the lighter to his pocket, he scanned the street in both directions. Apparently satisfied there was no danger, he dropped the cigarette to the ground and started walking.

WITH THE cameras tracking his every move, he made his way to the end of Formosa Street and crossed the Grand Union Canal over a metal footbridge lined with spherical white lamps. Four youths in hooded sweatshirts were loitering in the darkness on the opposite bank; he slipped past them without a glance and walked past the colony of dour council flats lining Delamere Terrace. It was a few seconds after six when he descended a flight of stone steps to the boat basin known as Browning’s Pool. There, he entered the Waterside Café, emerging precisely two minutes and fifteen seconds later, holding a paper cup covered by a plastic lid. He stood outside the café for a little more than a minute, then dropped the cup in a rubbish bin and walked along the quay to another flight of steps, this one leading to Warwick Crescent. He paused briefly in the quiet street to light another cigarette and smoked it during the walk to Harrow Road Bridge. His pace now visibly quicker, he continued along Harrow Road, where, at precisely 18:12:32, he stopped suddenly and turned toward the oncoming traffic. A black Mercedes sedan immediately pulled to the curb and the door swung open. Grigori climbed into the rear compartment, and the car lurched forward out of frame. Five seconds later, a man passed through the shot, tapping the tip of his umbrella against the pavement as he moved. Then, from the opposite direction, came a young woman. She wore a car-length leather coat, carried no umbrella, and was hatless in the rain.

10

THE IMAGE dissolved into a blizzard of gray and white. Graham Seymour pressed the STOP button.

“As you can see, Grigori willingly got into that car. No hesitation. No sign of distress or fear.”

“He’s a pro, Graham. He was trained never to show fear, even if he was frightened half to death.”

“He was definitely a pro. He fooled us all. He even managed to fool you, Gabriel. And from what I hear, you’ve got quite an eye for forgeries.”

Gabriel refused to rise to the bait. “Were you able to trace the car’s movements with CCTV?”

“It turned left into Edgware Road, then made a right at St. John’s Wood Road. Eventually, it entered an underground parking garage in Primrose Hill, where it remained for fifty-seven minutes. When it reemerged, the passenger compartment appeared to be empty.”

“No cameras in the garage?”

Seymour shook his head.

“Any other vehicles leave before the Mercedes?”

“Four sedans and a single Ford Transit van. The sedans all checked out. The van had the markings of a carpet-cleaning service based in Battersea. The owner said he had no jobs in the area that evening. Furthermore, the registration number didn’t match any of those leased by his firm.”

“So Grigori left in the back of the Ford?”

“That’s our working assumption. After leaving the garage, it headed northeast to Brentwood, a suburb just outside the M25. At which point, it slipped out of CCTV range and disappeared from sight.”

“What about the Mercedes?”

“Southeast. We lost sight of it near Shooter’s Hill. The next day a burned-out car was discovered along the Thames Estuary east of Gravesend. Whoever set it afire hadn’t bothered to remove the serial numbers. They matched the numbers of a car purchased two weeks ago by someone with a Russian name and a vague address. Needless to say, all attempts to locate this person have proven fruitless.”

“The door of that car was clearly opened from the inside. It looked to me as if there was at least one person in the back.”

“Actually, there were two.”

Seymour produced an eight-by-ten close-up of the car. Though grainy and heavily shadowed, it showed two figures in the backseat. Gabriel was most intrigued by the one nearest the driver’s-side window. It was a woman.

“I don’t suppose you were able to get a picture of them before they got into the car?”

“Unfortunately not. The Russians deliberately ran it through a gap in the cameras a couple of miles from Heathrow Airport. We never saw anyone enter or leave it. They appeared to vanish into thin air, just like Grigori.”

Gabriel stared at the image a moment longer. “It’s a lot of preparation for something that could have been handled far more simply. If Grigori was planning to redefect, why not slip him a passport, an airline ticket, and a change of appearance? He could have left London in the morning and been back home in time for his borscht and chicken Kiev.”

Seymour had an answer ready. “The Russians would assume we had Grigori under watch. From their point of view, they had to create a scenario that would look completely innocent to the CCTV cameras.” Seymour raised a long pale hand toward the now-blank screen. “You saw it yourself, Gabriel. He was clearly checking for watchers. When he was certain we weren’t following him, he sent a signal of some sort. Then his old comrades scooped him up.”

“ Moscow Rules?”

“Exactly.”

“I assume you checked Grigori’s route for chalk marks, tape marks, or other signs of impersonal communication.”

“We did.”

“And?”

“Nothing. But as a professional field operative, you know there are any number of ways of sending a signal. Hat, no hat. Cigarette, no cigarette. Wristwatch on the left hand, wristwatch on the right.”

“Grigori was right-handed. And he was wearing his watch, as usual, on his left wrist. Also, it was a different watch than the one he was wearing in Russia last autumn.”

“You do have a keen eye.”

“I do. And when I look at those CCTV images, I see something different. I see a man who’s frightened of something and trying damn hard not to show it. Something made Grigori stop suddenly in his tracks. And something made him get inside that car. It wasn’t a redefection, Graham. It was an abduction. The Russians stole him right from under your nose.”

“Thames House doesn’t see it that way. Neither do our colleagues on the other bank of the river. As for Downing Street and the Foreign Office, they’re inclined to accept our findings. The prime minister is in no mood for another high-stakes confrontation with the Russians. Not after the Litvinenko affair. And not with a G-8 summit just around the corner.”

Confronted by the global financial meltdown, the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations had just agreed to hold emergency talks in February to coordinate their fiscal and monetary stimulus policies. Much to the consternation of the many bureaucrats and reporters who would also be in attendance, the summit would take place in Moscow. Gabriel was not concerned about the pending G-8 summit. He was thinking of Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB man who was poisoned with a dose of radioactive polonium-210.

“Your conduct after Litvinenko’s murder probably convinced the Russians they could pull a stunt like this and get away with it. After all, the Russians carried out what amounted to an act of nuclear terrorism in the heart of London, and you responded with a diplomatic slap on the wrist.”

Seymour placed a finger thoughtfully against his lips. “That’s an interesting theory. But I’m afraid our response to Litvinenko’s murder, however feeble in your opinion, had no bearing on Grigori’s case.”

Gabriel knew that to belabor the point was futile. Graham Seymour was a trusted counterpart and occasional ally, but his first allegiance would always be to his service and his country. The same was true for Gabriel. Such were the rules of the game.

“Do I have to remind you that Grigori helped you and the Americans track down Ivan’s missiles? If it weren’t for him, several commercial airliners might have been blown out of the sky on a single day.”

“Actually, all the information we needed was contained in the records you and Elena stole from Ivan’s office. In fact, the prime minister had to be talked into giving Grigori asylum and a British passport. London is already home to several prominent Russian dissidents, including a handful of billionaires who ran afoul of the regime. He was reluctant to stick another finger in Moscow ’s eye.”

“What changed his mind?”

“We told him it was the proper thing to do. After all, the Americans had agreed to take Elena and her children. We felt we had to do our bit. Grigori promised to be a good boy and to keep his head down. Which he did.” Seymour paused, then added, “For a while.”

“Until he became a celebrity defector and dissident.”

Seymour nodded his head in agreement.

“You should have locked him away in a little cottage in the countryside somewhere and thrown away the key.”

“Grigori insisted on London. The Russians love London.”

“So this worked out rather nicely for you. You never wanted Grigori, and now the Russians have been kind enough to take him off your hands.”

“We don’t see it that way.”

“How do you see it?”

Seymour made a show of deliberation. “As you might expect, Grigori’s motivations are now the subject of rather intense debate. As you also might expect, opinion is divided. There are those who believe he was bad from the start. There are others who think he simply had a change of heart.”

“A change of heart?”

“Rather like that Yurchenko chap who came over to the Americans back in the eighties. You remember Vitaly Yurchenko? A few months after he defected, he was dining at a dreadful little French restaurant in Georgetown when he told his CIA minder that he was going out for a walk. He never came back.”

“Grigori was homesick?” Gabriel shook his head. “He couldn’t get out of Russia fast enough. There’s no way he would willingly go back.”

“His own words would suggest otherwise.” Seymour removed a plain buff envelope from the attaché and held it aloft between two fingers. “You might want to listen to this before attaching your star to a man like Grigori. He’s not exactly the marrying kind.”

11

THE LETTER was dated January the twelfth and addressed to the cover name of Grigori’s MI5 minder. The text was brief, five sentences in length, and written in English, which Grigori spoke quite well-well enough, Gabriel recalled, to conduct a rather terrifying interrogation in the cellars of Lubyanka. Graham Seymour read the letter aloud. Then he handed it to Gabriel, who read it silently.

Sorry I didn’t tell you about my plans to return home, Monty, but I’m sure you can understand why I kept them to myself. I hope my actions don’t leave a permanent stain on your record. You are far too decent to be working in a business like this. I enjoyed our time together, especially the chess. You almost made London bearable.

Regards, G

“It was mailed from Zurich to an MI5 postbox in Camden Town. That address was known to only a handful of senior people, Grigori’s minder, and Grigori himself. Shall I go on?”

“Please do.”

“Our experts have linked the original A4 stationery to a German paper company based in Hamburg. Oddly enough, the envelope was manufactured by the same company but was of a slightly different style. Our experts have also conclusively attributed the handwriting, along with several latent fingerprints found on the surface of the paper, to Grigori Bulganov.”

“Handwriting can be forged, Graham. Just like paintings.”

“What about the fingerprints?”

Gabriel lifted Seymour ’s hand by the wrist and placed it against the paper. “We’re talking about Russians, Graham. They don’t play by Marquis of Queensberry rules.”

Seymour freed his hand from Gabriel’s grasp. “It’s clear from the letter that Grigori was cooperating. It was addressed to the correct cover name of his minder and mailed to the proper address.”

“Perhaps they tortured him. Or perhaps torture wasn’t necessary because Grigori knew full well what would happen if he didn’t cooperate. He was one of them, Graham. He knew their methods. He used them from time to time. I should know. I saw him in his element.”

“If Grigori was kidnapped, why bother with the charade of a letter?”

“The Russians committed a serious crime on your soil. It’s only natural they might try to cover their tracks with a stunt like this. No kidnapping, no crime.”

Seymour regarded Gabriel with his granite-colored eyes. Like his handshake, they were an unfair weapon. “Two men stand before an abstract painting. One sees clouds over a wheat field, the other sees a pair of blue whales mating. Who’s correct? Does it matter? Do you see my point, Gabriel?”

“I’m trying very hard, Graham.”

“Your defector is gone. And nothing we say now is going to change that.”

“My defector?”

“You brought him here.”

“And you agreed to protect him. Downing Street should have lodged an official protest with the Russian ambassador an hour after Grigori missed his first check-in.”

“An official protest?” Seymour shook his head slowly. “Perhaps you’re not aware of the fact that the United Kingdom has more money invested in Russia than any other Western country. The prime minister has no intention of endangering those investments by starting another blazing row with the Kremlin.”

“ ‘ When we hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope.’ ”

“Stalin, right? And the old boy had a point. Capitalism is the West’s greatest strength, and its greatest weakness.”

Gabriel placed the letter on the table and changed the subject. “As I recall, Grigori was working on a book.”

Seymour handed Gabriel a stack of paper. It was approximately one inch thick and bound by a pair of black metal clasps. Gabriel looked at the first page: KILLER IN THE KREMLIN BY GRIGORI BULGANOV.

“I thought it was rather catchy,” Seymour said.

“I doubt the Russians would agree. I assume you’ve read it?”

Seymour nodded his head. “He’s rather hard on the Kremlin and not terribly kind to his old service. He accuses the FSB of all manner of sins, including murder, extortion, and links to organized crime and the oligarchs. He also makes a very persuasive case that the FSB was involved in those apartment-house bombings in Moscow, the ones the Russian president used as justification for sending the Red Army back into Chechnya. Grigori claims he personally knew the officers involved in the operation and identifies two by name.”

“Any mention of me?”

“There is a chapter in the book about the Kharkov affair, but it’s not terribly accurate. As far as Grigori is concerned, he was the one who single-handedly tracked down the missiles Ivan sold to al-Qaeda. There’s no mention of you or any Israeli connection in the manuscript.”

“What about his handwritten notes or computer files?”

“We searched them all. As far as Grigori was concerned, you do not exist.”

Gabriel leafed through the pages of the manuscript. On the sixth page was a margin note, written in English. He read it, then looked at Seymour for an explanation.

“It’s from Grigori’s editor at Buckley and Hobbes. I suppose, at some point, we’re going to have to tell them that they’re not going to get a book anytime soon.”

“You read her notes.”

“We read everything.”

Gabriel turned several more pages, then stopped again to examine another margin note. Unlike the first, it was written in Russian. “It must have been written by Grigori,” Seymour said.

“It doesn’t match the handwriting in the letter.”

“The letter was written in Roman. The note is Cyrillic.”

“Trust me, Graham. They weren’t written by the same person.”

Gabriel leafed quickly through the remaining pages and found several more notations written by the same hand. When he looked up again, Seymour was removing the disk from the DVD player. He returned it to the clear plastic case and handed it to Gabriel. The message was clear. The briefing was over. If there was any doubt about Seymour ’s intent, it was put to rest by a ponderous examination of his wristwatch. Gabriel made one final request. He wanted to see the rest of the house. Seymour rose slowly to his feet. “But we’re not going to be pulling up any floorboards or peeling back the wallpaper,” he said. “I have a dinner date. And I’m already ten minutes late.”

12

GABRIEL FOLLOWED Seymour up two flights of narrow stairs to the bedroom. On the night table to the right of the double bed was an ashtray filled with crushed cigarettes. They were all the same brand: Sobranie White Russians, the kind Gri- gori had smoked during Gabriel’s interrogation at Lubyanka and during their escape from Russia. Piled beneath the brass reading lamp were several books: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Agatha Christie, P. D. James. “He loved English murder mysteries,” Seymour said. “He thought that reading P. D. James would help him become more like us, though why anyone would want to become more like us is beyond me.”

At the foot of the bed was a white box printed with the logo of a dry-cleaning and laundry service located in Elgin Avenue. Lifting the lid, Gabriel saw a half dozen shirts, neatly pressed and folded and wrapped in tissue paper. Resting atop the shirts was a cash register receipt. The date on the receipt matched the date of Grigori’s disappearance. The time of the transaction was recorded as 3:42 p.m.

“We assume his controllers wanted his last day in London to be as normal as possible,” Seymour said.

Gabriel found the explanation dubious at best. He entered the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Scattered among the various lotions, creams, and grooming devices were three bottles of prescription medication: one for sleep, one for anxiety, and one for migraine headaches.

“Who prescribed these?”

“A doctor who works for us.”

“Grigori never struck me as the anxious type.”

“He said it was the pressure of writing a book on deadline.”

Gabriel removed a bottle of indigestion medication and turned the label toward Seymour.

“He had a fickle stomach,” Seymour said.

“He should have eaten something other than salted herring and pasta sauce.”

Gabriel closed the cabinet and lifted the lid of the hamper. It was empty.

“Where’s his dirty laundry?”

“He dropped it off the afternoon he vanished.”

“That’s exactly what I would do if I were preparing to redefect.”

Gabriel switched off the bathroom lights and followed Seymour down a flight of steps to the sitting room. The coffee table was scattered with newspapers, a few from London, the rest from Russia: Izvestia, Kommersant, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moskovskaya Gazeta. On one corner of the table stood a Russian-style tea glass, its contents long evaporated. Next to the glass was another ashtray filled with cigarette butts. Gabriel picked through them with the tip of a pen. They were all the same: Sobranie White Russians. Just then, he heard the sound of laughter outside in the mews. Parting the blinds in the front window, he watched a pair of lovers pass arm in arm beneath his feet.

“I assume you have a camera somewhere in the courtyard?”

Seymour pointed to a downspout near the passageway.

“Any Russians dropping by for a peek?”

“No one that we’ve been able to link to the local rezidentura.”

Rezidentura was the word used by the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, to describe their operations inside local embassies. The rezident was the station chief, the rezidentura the station itself. It was a holdover from the days of the KGB. Most things about the SVR were.

“What happens when someone comes into the mews?”

“If they live here, nothing happens. If we don’t recognize them, they get a tail and a background check. Thus far, everyone’s checked out.”

“And no one’s tried to enter the cottage itself?”

Seymour shook his head. Gabriel released the blinds and walked over to Grigori’s cluttered desk. In the center was a darkened notebook computer. Next to the computer was a telephone with a built-in answering machine. A red message light blinked softly.

“Those must be new,” Seymour said.

“Do you mind?”

Without waiting for a response, Gabriel reached down and pressed the PLAYBACK button. A high-pitched tone sounded, then a robotic male voice announced there were three new messages. The first was from Sparkle Clean Laundry and Dry-Cleaning, requesting that Mr. Bulganov collect his belongings. The second was from a producer at the BBC’s Panorama program who wished to book Mr. Bulganov for an upcoming documentary on the resurgence of Russia.

The last message was from a woman who spoke with a pronounced Russian accent. Her voice had the quality of a minor scale. C minor, thought Gabriel. Key of concentration in solemnity. Key of philosophical introspection. The woman said she had just finished reading the newest pages of the manuscript and wished to discuss them at Grigori’s convenience. She left no call-back number, nor did she mention her name. For Gabriel, it wasn’t necessary. The sound of her voice had been echoing in his memory from the moment of their first encounter. How do you do, she had said that evening in Moscow. My name is Olga Sukhova.

“I suppose we now know who wrote those notes in Grigori’s manuscript.”

“I suppose we do.”

“I want to see her, Graham.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” Seymour switched off the answering machine. “Rome has spoken. The case is closed.”

13

THE BLOCKS of council flats looming over Delamere Terrace looked like something the Soviets might have thrown up during the halcyon days of “developed Socialism.” Artlessly designed and poorly constructed, each building bore a very English-sounding name suggesting a peaceful countryside existence within, along with a yellow sign warning that the area was under continuous surveillance. Grigori had walked past the flats a few minutes before his disappearance. Gabriel, retracing the Russian’s steps, did so now. Though he hated to admit it, Seymour’s briefing had shaken his absolute faith in Grigori’s innocence. Did he redefect? Or was he abducted? Gabriel was certain the answer could be found here, on the streets of Maida Vale.

Show me how they did it, Grigori. Show me how they got you into that car.

He walked to Browning’s Pool and stood outside the Waterside Café, now closed and shuttered. In his mind, he replayed the video. At precisely 18:03:37, it appeared Grigori had taken note of a couple crossing Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge from Blom field Road. The man was wearing a belted raincoat and a waxed hat and holding an open umbrella in his left hand. The woman was pressed affectionately to his shoulder. She wore a woolen coat with a fur collar and was reading something-a street map, thought Gabriel, or perhaps a guidebook of some sort.

Gabriel turned now, as Grigori had turned, and walked along the edge of Browning’s Pool to the steps leading to Warwick Crescent. At the top of the steps he paused, as Grigori had paused, though he lit no cigarette. Instead, he made his way to Harrow Road, where Grigori had seen something-or someone-that made him quicken his pace. Gabriel did the same and continued on along the empty pavements for another two hundred meters.

Despite the hour, traffic along the busy four-lane thorough-fare was still thunderous. He stopped briefly near St. Mary’s Church, walked a few paces farther, and stopped again. It was here, he thought. This was the spot where Grigori had become too frightened to continue. The spot where he had frozen in his tracks and turned impulsively toward the oncoming traffic. In the recording, it had appeared as if Grigori had briefly considered attempting to cross the busy road. Then, as now, it almost certainly would have meant death by other means.

Gabriel looked to his left and saw a brick wall, six feet tall and covered in graffiti. Then he looked to his right and saw the river of steel and glass flowing along Harrow Road. Why did he stop here? And why, when a car appeared without being summoned, did he get in without hesitation? Was it a prearranged bolt-hole? Or a perfectly sprung trap?

Help me, Grigori. Did they send an old enemy to frighten you into coming home? Or did they send a friend to take you gently by the hand?

Gabriel gazed into the glare of the oncoming headlamps. And for an instant he glimpsed a small, well-dressed figure advancing toward him along the pavement, tapping his umbrella. Then he saw the woman. A woman in a car-length leather coat who carried no umbrella. A woman who was hatless in the rain. She brushed past him now, as if late for an appointment, and hurried off along Harrow Road. Gabriel tried to recall the features of her face but could not. They were ghostlike and fragmentary, like the first faint lines of an unfinished sketch. And so he stood there alone, London’s rush hour roaring in his ears, and watched her disappear into the darkness.

14

IT HAD BEEN more than thirty-six hours since Gabriel had slept, and he was bone-weary with exhaustion. Under normal circumstances, he would have contacted the local station and requested use of a safe flat. That was not an option, since assets from the local station were probably engaged in a frantic search for him at that very moment. He would have to stay in a hotel. And not a nice hotel with computerized registration that could be searched by sophisticated data-mining software. It would have to be the sort of hotel that accepted cash and laughed at requests for amenities like room service, telephones that functioned, and clean towels.

The Grand Hotel Berkshire was just such a place. It stood at the end of a terrace of flaking Edwardian houses in West Crom well Road. The night manager, a tired man in a tired gray sweater, expressed little surprise when Gabriel said he had no reservation and even less when he announced he would pay the bill for his stay-three nights, perhaps two if his business went well-entirely in cash. He then handed the manager a pair of crisp twenty-pound notes and said he was expecting no visitors of any kind, nor did he want to be disturbed by telephone calls or maid service. The night manager slipped the money into his pocket and promised Gabriel’s stay would be both private and secure. Gabriel bade him a pleasant evening and saw himself upstairs to his room.

Located on the third floor overlooking the busy street, it stank of loneliness and the last occupant’s appalling cologne. Closing the door behind him, Gabriel found himself overcome by a sudden wave of depression. How many nights had he spent in rooms just like it? Perhaps Chiara was right. Perhaps it was time to finally leave the Office and allow the fighting to be done by other men. He would take to the hills of Umbria and give his new wife the child she so desperately wanted, the child Gabriel had denied himself because of what had happened on a snowy night in Vienna in another lifetime. He had not chosen that life. It had been chosen for him by others. It had been chosen by Yasir Arafat and a band of Palestinian terrorists known as Black September. And it had been chosen by Ari Shamron.

Shamron had come for him on a brilliant afternoon in Jerusalem in September 1972. Gabriel was a promising young painter who had forsaken a post in an elite military unit to pursue his formal training at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Shamron had just been given command of Operation Wrath of God, the secret Israeli intelligence operation to hunt down and assassinate the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre. He required an instrument of vengeance, and Gabriel was exactly the sort of young man for whom he was searching: brash but intelligent, loyal but independent, emotionally cold but inherently decent. He also spoke fluent German with the Berlin accent of his mother and had traveled extensively in Europe as a child.

After a month of intense training, Shamron dispatched him to Rome, where he killed a man named Wadal Abdel Zwaiter in the foyer of an apartment building in the Piazza Annibaliano. He and his team of operatives then spent the next three years stalking their prey across Western Europe, killing at night and in broad daylight, living in fear that, at any moment, they would be arrested by European police and charged as murderers.

When finally Gabriel returned home again, his temples were the color of ash and his face was that of a man twenty years his senior. Leah, whom he had married shortly before leaving Israel, scarcely recognized him when he entered their apartment. A gifted artist in her own right, she asked him to sit for a portrait. Rendered in the style of Egon Schiele, it showed a haunted young man, aged prematurely by the shadow of death. The canvas was among the finest Leah ever produced. Gabriel had always hated it, for it portrayed with brutal honesty the toll Wrath of God had taken on him.

Physically exhausted and stripped of his desire to paint, he sought refuge in Venice, where he studied the craft of restoration under the renowned Umberto Conti. When his apprenticeship was complete, Shamron summoned him back to active duty. Working undercover as a professional art restorer, Gabriel eliminated Israel’s most dangerous foes and carried out a series of quiet investigations that earned him important friends in Washington, the Vatican, and London. But he had powerful adversaries as well. He could not walk a street without the nagging fear that he was being stalked by one of his enemies. Nor could he sleep in a hotel room without first barricading the door with a chair, which he did now.

He loaded the disk of the CCTV footage into the in-room DVD player, then, after removing only his shoes, climbed into the bed. For the next several hours he watched the surveillance video over and over, trying to blend what he could see on the screen with what he had experienced on the streets of Maida Vale. Unable to find the connection, he switched off the television. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, the images of Grigori’s final moments appeared like photographs on an overhead projector. Grigori entering a car on Harrow Road. A well-dressed man with an umbrella. A woman in a leather coat, hatless in the rain. The last image dissolved into a painting, darkened by a layer of dirty varnish. Gabriel closed his eyes, dipped a swab in solvent, and twirled it gently against the surface.

THE ANSWER came to him an hour before dawn. He groped in the gloom for the remote and pointed it at the screen. A few seconds later, it flickered to life. It was 17:47 last Tuesday. Grigori Bulganov was standing in the passageway of Bristol Mews. At 17:48, he dropped his cigarette and started walking.

HE FOLLOWED the now-familiar route to the Waterside Café. At 18:03:37, the young couple appeared precisely on schedule, belted raincoat for the man, woolen coat with fur collar for the woman. Gabriel reversed the image and watched the scene again, then a third time. Then he pressed PAUSE. According to the time code, it was 18:04:25 when the couple reached the end of the Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge. If the operation had been well planned-and all evidence suggested it had-there was plenty of time.

Gabriel advanced the video to the final thirty seconds and watched one last time as Grigori entered the back of the Mercedes. As the car slid from view, a small, well-dressed man entered from the left. Then, a few seconds later, came the woman in the car-length leather coat. No umbrella. Hatless in the rain.

Gabriel froze the image and looked at her shoes.

15

IT WAS BITTERLY COLD in Parliament Square, but not cold enough to keep the protesters at bay. There was the inevitable demonstration against the crimes of Israel, another calling for the Americans to leave Iraq, and still another that predicted the south of England would soon be turned to desert by global warming. Gabriel walked to the other side of the square and sat on an empty bench, opposite the North Tower of Westminster Abbey. It was the same bench where he had once waited for the daughter of the American ambassador to be delivered to the abbey by two jihadist suicide bombers. He wondered whether Graham Seymour had chosen the spot intentionally or if the unpleasantness of that morning had simply slipped his mind.

A chauffeured Jaguar limousine eased to the edge of the square shortly after three. Seymour emerged from the back, wearing a chesterfield coat. He waited until the car had sped off down Victoria Street before walking over to the bench. This time, it was Seymour who was late.

“Sorry, Gabriel, my meeting with the prime minister went longer than expected.”

“How is he?”

“Given the fact he’s the most unpopular British leader in a generation, he put on a rather good show. And for a change we were actually able to bring him a bit of good news.”

“What’s that?”

“Nice try.”

“Come on, Graham.” Gabriel glanced toward the façade of the abbey. “We have a history, you and I.”

Seymour said nothing for a moment. “Bloody awful day, wasn’t it? I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get that image out of my mind, the image of you-”

“I remember it, Graham. I was there.”

Seymour tucked the ends of his woolen scarf under the lapel of his overcoat. “As we speak, officers of the Metropolitan Police are conducting raids across East London.”

“East London? I guess they’re not arresting Russians.”

“It’s an al-Qaeda cell we’ve been watching for some time. They’re the real thing. They were in the final stages of a plan to attack several financial and tourist targets. The loss of life would have been significant.”

“When are you going to announce the arrests?”

“The prime minister plans to issue a public statement later this evening, just in time for the News at Ten. His handlers are hoping for a much-needed bump in the opinion polls.” Seymour stood. “I need to get back to Thames House. Walk with me.”

The two men rose in unison and headed across the square toward the Houses of Parliament. They were an incongruous pair, Gabriel in his jeans and leather jacket, Seymour in his tailored suit and overcoat.

“Honor is due, Gabriel. At your suggestion, we dug a little deeper and pulled up some new CCTV images from the surrounding streets. The couple who crossed Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge at three minutes past six climbed into a waiting car in a quiet side street. It brought them to Edgware Road, where the woman emerged alone. She’d changed her coat along the way.” Seymour cast an admiring glance toward Gabriel. “May I ask what made you suspicious of her?”

“Her umbrella.”

“But she didn’t have one.”

“Precisely. There was a light rain falling, but the woman wasn’t carrying an umbrella. She needed her hands free.” Gabriel gave Seymour a sideways glance. “People like me don’t carry umbrellas, Graham.”

“Assassins, you mean?”

Gabriel didn’t respond directly. “If Grigori hadn’t climbed into that car on his own, the woman would have probably killed him on the spot. I suppose he decided it was better to take his chances. Better to be a missing defector than a dead one.”

“What else did you notice about her?”

“She never bothered to change her shoes. I suppose there wasn’t time.”

“What I wouldn’t do for your eye.”

“It’s a professional affliction.”

“Which profession?”

Gabriel only smiled. They had reached the southern end of the Houses of Parliament and were walking now along the Victoria Tower Gardens. Ahead of them loomed the heavy gray façade of Thames House. Seymour suddenly appeared in no hurry to get back to the office.

“Your discovery presents me with an obvious dilemma. If I bring this to the attention of my director-general, it will ignite a battle royal within the Security Service. I’ll be branded a heretic. And you know what we do with heretics.”

“I don’t want you to say a thing, Graham.” Gabriel paused, then added, “Not until I’ve had a chance to talk to Olga.”

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question. My DG would have my head on a stick if he knew how much access I’ve already given you. Your involvement in this affair is now over. In fact, if you hurry, you can pack your bags and catch the last Eurostar to Paris. It leaves at 7:39 on the dot.”

“I need to talk to her, Graham. Just for a few minutes.”

Seymour stopped walking and stared at the lights burning on the top floor of Thames House. “Why do I know I’m going to regret this?” He turned toward Gabriel. “You have twenty-four hours. Then I want you out of the country.”

Gabriel ran a finger over his heart twice.

“She’s hiding out in Oxford on the dodgy side of Magdalen Bridge. Number 24 Rectory Road. Goes by the name Marina Chesnikova. We got her a job tutoring Russian-language students at the university.”

“What’s her security like?”

“Same as Grigori’s. She had it for the first couple of months, then asked us to back off. She has a minder and a daily check-in call. We monitor her phones and follow her from time to time to make sure she’s not under surveillance and that she’s behaving herself.”

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t follow her tomorrow. Or me.”

“You’re not even here. As for Ms. Chesnikova, I’ll tell her to expect you. Don’t disappointment me.” He gave Gabriel an admonitory pat on the shoulder and started across Horseferry Road alone.

“What kind of car was it?”

Seymour turned. “Which car?”

“The car that took the woman from Maida Vale to Edgware.”

“It was a Vauxhall Insignia.”

“Color?”

“I believe they call it Metro Blue.”

“Hatchback?”

“Saloon, actually. And don’t forget. I want you on the last train to Paris tomorrow night.”

“Seven thirty-nine. On the dot.”

16

THE WIND SWEPT IN from the northwest, over the Vale of Evesham and down the slopes of the Cotswold Hills. It whipped past the shops in Cornmarket Street, chased round the Peckwater Quad of Christ Church, and laid siege to the flotilla of punts lashed together beneath Magdalen Bridge. Gabriel paused to gaze upon this emblematic image of an England that died long ago, then struck out across the Plain to Cowley Road.

Oxford, he remembered from his last visit, was not one city but two: an academic citadel of limestone colleges and spires on the western bank of the river Cherwell, a redbrick industrial town to the east. It was in the district of Cowley that a young bicycle maker named William Morris built his first automobile factory in 1913, instantly transforming Oxford into a major center of British manufacturing. Though the neighborhood remained true to its English working-class heritage, it had been remade into a bohemian quarter of colorful shops, cafés, and nightclubs. Students and dons from the university found lodgings in the cramped houses, along with immigrants from Pakistan, China, the Caribbean, and Africa. The district was also home to a substantial population of recent arrivals from the former Communist lands of Eastern Europe. Indeed, as Gabriel passed an organic grocer, he heard two women debating in Russian as they picked through a pile of tomatoes.

At the corner of Jeune Street an elderly woman was engaged in an altogether futile effort to sweep the dust from the forecourt of a Methodist church, the ends of her scarf fluttering like banners in the wind. Next to the entrance was a blue-and-white sign that read: EARTH IS THE LORD’S: IT IS OURS TO ENJOY, OURS TO FARM AND DEFEND. Gabriel walked another block to Rectory Road and rounded the corner.

The road fell away and bent slightly to the left, just enough so that he could not see to the other end. Gabriel walked the entire length once, searching for evidence of watchers. Finding none, he doubled back to the house at No. 24. Along the edge of the sidewalk was a short brick wall with weeds sprouting from the mortar. Behind the wall, in a tiny patch of white gravel, stood a large green trash receptacle. Leaning against it was a bicycle, its front wheel missing, its saddle covered in a plastic shopping bag. The walkway was perhaps a meter in length. It led to a flaking wood door set within an alcove. Apparently, the bell no longer functioned because nothing happened when Gabriel placed his thumb against the button. He gave the door three firm raps and heard the tap-tap-tap of female footsteps in the foyer. Then the sound of a voice, a woman speaking English with a distinct Russian accent.

“Who is there, please?”

“It’s Natan Golani. We sat next to one another at dinner last summer at the Israeli ambassador’s residence. We chatted briefly on the terrace when you went out for a cigarette. You told me that Russians cannot live as normal people and never will.”

Gabriel heard the rattle of a chain and watched the door swing slowly open. The woman standing in the tiny entranceway was clutching a Siamese cat with luminous blue eyes that matched hers to perfection. She wore a tight-fitting black sweater, charcoal-gray trousers, and smart black boots. Her hair, once long and flaxen, was now short and dark. Her face, however, was unchanged. It was one of the most beautiful Gabriel had ever seen: heroic, vulnerable, virtuous. The face of a Russian icon come to life. The face of Russia itself.

Until six months ago, Olga Sukhova had been a practitioner of one of the world’s most dangerous trades: Russian journalism. From her post at Moskovskaya Gazeta, a crusading weekly, she had exposed the atrocities of the Red Army in Chechnya, unearthed corruption at the highest levels of the Kremlin, and been an unflinching critic of the Russian president’s assault on democracy. Her reporting had left her with a dim view of her country and its future, though nothing could have prepared her for the most important discovery of her career: a Russian oligarch and arms dealer named Ivan Kharkov was preparing to sell some of Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to al-Qaeda terrorists. Though never published by the Gazeta, the story resulted in the murder of two of Olga’s colleagues. The first, Aleksandr Lubin, was stabbed to death in a hotel room in the French ski resort of Courchevel. The second, an editor named Boris Ostrovsky, died in Gabriel’s arms on the floor of St. Peter’s Basilica, the victim of a poisoning. Were it not for Gabriel and Grigori Bulganov, Olga Sukhova would surely have been murdered as well.

The dangerous nature of Olga’s work and the constant threats against her life had left her with the finely tuned tradecraft of a seasoned spy. Like Gabriel, she assumed all rooms, even the rooms of her own home, were bugged. Important conversations were best conducted in public places. Which explained why five minutes after Gabriel’s arrival, they were walking along the windswept pavements of St. Clement’s Street. Gabriel listened to the clatter of her boots against the pavement and thought of a cloudy afternoon in Moscow when they had walked among the dead in Novodevichy Cemetery, shadowed by rotating teams of Russian watchers. Perhaps you should kiss me now, Mr. Golani. It is better if the FSB is under the impression we intend to become lovers.

“Do you miss it?” he asked.

“Moscow?” She smiled sadly. “I miss it terribly. The noise. The smells. The horrendous traffic. Sometimes I even find myself missing the snow. January is nearly over, and not a single flake. The woman on the BBC called this a cold snap. In Moscow, we call it springtime.” She looked at him. “Does it ever snow in Oxford?”

“If it does, it won’t be anything like home.”

“Nothing is like home. Oxford is a lovely city, but I must confess I find it rather dull. Moscow has many problems, but at least it is never dull. You might find this hard to understand, but I desperately miss being a Russian journalist.”

“A very wise and beautiful woman once told me there is no journalism in Russia-not real journalism, at least.”

“It’s true. The regime has managed to silence its critics in the press, not by overt censorship but with murder, intimidation, and forced changes of ownership. The Gazeta is now nothing but a tabloid scandal sheet, filled with stories about pop stars, men from outer space, and werewolves living in the forests outside Moscow. You’ll be happy to know circulation is higher than ever.”

“At least no one is getting killed.”

“That’s true. Poor Boris was the last to die.”

She gave Gabriel’s arm a melancholy squeeze. “I did notice a story about Ivan on the Gazeta’s website last month. He was attending the opening-night party for a new restaurant in Moscow. His new wife, Yekaterina, was ravishing as usual. Ivan looked quite well himself. In fact, he was sporting a suntan.” She furrowed her brow into an affected frown. “Where do you suppose Ivan was able to get a suntan in Russia in the middle of winter? In one of those tanning beds? No, I don’t think so. Ivan’s not the sort to radiate his skin with lights. Ivan used to get his tan in Saint-Tropez. Perhaps he slipped into Courchevel with a false passport for a bit of skiing at Christmastime. Or perhaps he paid a visit to one of his old haunts in Africa.”

“We’ve been picking up reports that he’s rebuilding his old networks.”

“You don’t say.”

“Have you heard similar things?”

“To be honest, I try not to think about Ivan. I have a blog. It’s quite popular here in Britain as well as Moscow. The FSB has launched repeated cyberattacks against it.” She gave a fleeting smile. “It gives me inordinate pleasure to know I can annoy the Kremlin, even from a cottage in Cowley.”

“Perhaps it would be wiser for you to-”

“To what?” she interrupted. “To keep quiet? The people of Russia have been silent for too long. The regime has used that silence as justification for crushing any semblance of democracy and imposing a form of soft totalitarianism. Someone has to speak up. If it has to be me, then so be it. I’ve done it before.”

They had reached the other side of Magdalen Bridge: the side of spires and limestone and great thoughts. Olga stopped in the High Street and pretended to read the notice board.

“I must confess I wasn’t surprised when Graham Seymour called last night to tell me you were coming. I assume this concerns Grigori. He’s missing, isn’t he?”

Gabriel nodded.

“I was afraid of that when he didn’t return my call. He’s never done that before.” She paused, then asked, “How did you travel from London to Oxford?”

“The train from Paddington.”

“Did the British follow you?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as one can be.”

“And what about Russians? Were you followed by Russians?”

“Thus far, they seem unaware of my presence here.”

“I doubt they will be for long.” She looked across the street toward the entrance of the Oxford Botanic Gardens. “Let’s talk there, shall we? I’ve always enjoyed gardens in winter.”

17

MY GOD,”she whispered. “When will it end? When will it ever end?”

“Is it possible, Olga? Is there any way Grigori would go home on his own?”

She brushed away tears and looked around the gardens. “Have you been here before?”

It seemed an odd question, given what he had just told her. But he knew Olga well enough to understand it was not without purpose.

“This is my first visit.”

“A hundred and fifty years ago, a mathematician from Christ Church used to come here with a young girl and her two sisters. The mathematician was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The girl was Alice Liddell. Their visits served as the inspiration for a book Dodgson would write under the pen name Lewis Carroll-Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, of course. Fitting, don’t you think?”

“How so?”

“Because the British theory about Grigori is a tale worthy of Lewis Carroll. His hatred of the regime and his old service was real. The idea he would willingly return to Russia is absurd.”

They sat on a wooden bench in the center of the garden next to a fountain. Gabriel did not tell Olga he had reached the same conclusion or that he had photographic evidence to support it.

“You were working with him on his book.”

“I was.”

“You spent time with him?”

“More than the British probably realized.”

“How often did you see him?”

Olga searched the sky for an answer. “Every couple of weeks.”

“Where did you meet?”

“Usually, here in Oxford. I went to London two or three times when I needed a change of scenery.”

“How did you arrange the meetings?”

“By telephone.”

“You spoke openly on the phone?”

“We used a rather crude code. Grigori said the eavesdropping capability of the Russian services wasn’t what it once was but still good enough to warrant reasonable precautions.”

“How did Grigori travel here?”

“Like you. The train from Paddington.”

“He was careful?”

“So he said.”

“Did he come to your house?”

“Sometimes.”

“And others?”

“We would meet for lunch in the city center. Or for coffee.” She pointed toward the spire of Magdalen College. “There’s a lovely coffeehouse across the street called the Queen’s Lane. Grigori was quite fond of it.”

Gabriel knew it. The Queen’s Lane was the oldest coffeehouse in Oxford. For the moment, though, his thoughts were elsewhere. Two women of late middle age had just entered the garden. One was wrestling with a brochure in the wind; the other was tying a scarf beneath her chin. Gabriel scrutinized them for a moment, then resumed his questioning.

“And in London?”

“A dreadful little sandwich shop near the Notting Hill Gate tube stop. He liked it because it was close to the Russian Embassy. He took a perverse pleasure walking by it from time to time, just for fun.”

The Russian Embassy, a white wedding-cake structure surrounded by a high-security fence, stood at the northern end of Kensington Palace Gardens. Gabriel had walked past it himself the previous afternoon while killing time before his meeting with Graham Seymour.

“Did you ever go to his place?”

“No, but his description made me a bit jealous. Too bad I wasn’t a thug from the FSB. I would have liked a nice London house along with my new British passport.”

“How long did Grigori usually stay when he came here?”

“Two or three hours, sometimes a bit longer.”

“Did he ever spend the night?”

“Are you asking if we were lovers?”

“I’m just asking.”

“No, he never spent the night.”

“And were you lovers?”

“No, we were not lovers. I could never make love to a man who looked so much like Lenin.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“He was FSB once. Those bastards turned a blind eye while many of my friends were murdered. Besides, Grigori wasn’t interested in me. He was still in love with his wife.”

“Irina? To hear Grigori tell it, they nearly killed each other before they finally got a divorce.”

“His views must have changed with a bit of time and space. He said he’d been a fool. That he’d been too wrapped up in his work. She was seeing another man but hadn’t agreed to marry him yet. Grigori thought he could pry her away and bring her to England. He wanted Irina to know what an important person he’d become. He thought she would fall in love with him all over again if she could see him in his new element and in his smart new London mews house.”

“Was he in contact with her?”

Olga nodded.

“Did she respond to his overtures?”

“Apparently so, but Grigori never went into the details.”

“If I remember correctly, she’s a travel agent.”

“She works for a company called Galaxy Travel on Tverskaya Street in Moscow. She arranges flights and accommodations for Russians traveling to Western Europe. Galaxy caters to a high-end clientele. New Russians,” she added with a distinct note of disdain. “The kind of Russian who likes to spend winters in Courchevel and summers in Saint-Tropez.”

Olga dug a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. “I suspect business is rather slow at the moment for Galaxy Travel. The global recession has hit Russia extremely hard.” She made no attempt to conceal her pleasure at this development. “But that was predictable. Economies that depend on natural resources are always vulnerable to the inevitable cycle of boom and bust. One wonders how the regime will react to this new paradigm.”

Olga removed a cigarette from the pack and slipped it between her lips. When Gabriel reminded her that smoking was not permitted in the garden, she responded by lighting the cigarette anyway.

“I might have a British passport now, but I’m still a Russian. No Smoking signs mean nothing to us.”

“And you wonder why Russians die when they’re fifty-eight.”

“Only the men. We women live much longer.”

Olga exhaled a cloud of smoke, which the wind carried directly into Gabriel’s face. She apologized and switched places with him.

“I remember the night we all left together-the four of us crammed into that little Volga, pounding over the godforsaken roads of Russia. Grigori and I were smoking like fiends. You were leaning against the window with that bandage over your eye, begging us to stop. We couldn’t stop. We were terrified. But we were also thrilled about what lay ahead. We had such high hopes, Grigori and I. We were going to change Russia. Elena’s hopes were more modest. She just wanted to see her children again.” She blew smoke over her shoulder and looked at him. “Have you seen her?”

“Elena?” He shook his head.

“Spoken to her?”

“Not a word.”

“No contact at all?”

“She wrote me a letter. I painted her a painting.”

Gabriel appealed to her to put out the cigarette. As she buried the butt in the gravel at her feet, he watched a group of four tourists enter the garden.

“What did you think when Grigori became the celebrity defector and dissident?”

“I admired his courage. But I thought he was a fool for leading such a public life. I told him to lower his profile. I warned him that he was going to get into trouble. He wouldn’t listen. He was under Viktor’s spell.”

“Viktor?”

“Viktor Orlov.”

Gabriel recognized the name, of course. Viktor Orlov was one of the original Russian oligarchs, the small band of capitalist daredevils who gobbled up the valuable assets of the old Soviet state and made billions in the process. While ordinary Russians were struggling for survival, Viktor earned a king’s ransom in oil and steel. Eventually, he ran afoul of the post-Yeltsin regime and fled to Britain one step ahead of an arrest warrant. He was now one of the regime’s most vocal, if unreliable, critics. Orlov rarely allowed trivial things like facts to get in the way of the salacious charges he leveled regularly against the Russian president and his cronies in the Kremlin.

“Ever had any dealings with him?” Gabriel asked.

“Viktor?” Olga gave a guarded smile. “Once, a hundred years ago, in Moscow. It was just after Yeltsin left office. The new masters of the Kremlin wanted Viktor to voluntarily sell his businesses back to the state-at bargain-basement prices, of course. For understandable reasons, Viktor wasn’t interested. It got nasty-but then it always does. The Kremlin started talking about raids and seizures. That’s what the Kremlin does when it wants something. It brings to bear the power of the state.”

“And Viktor thought you could help?”

“He asked me to lunch. He said he had an exclusive for me: a man whose job was to procure young women for the president’s personal entertainment. Very young women, Gabriel. When I told him that I wouldn’t touch the story, he got angry. A month later, he fled the country. Officially, the Russians want him back to face tax and fraud charges.”

“And unofficially?”

“The Kremlin wants Viktor to surrender his majority stake in Ruzoil, the giant Siberian energy company. It’s worth many billions of dollars.”

“What did Viktor want with Grigori?”

“Viktor’s motives for opposing the Kremlin were hopelessly transparent and hardly noble. Grigori gave him something he never had before.”

“Respectability.”

“Correct. What’s more, Grigori knew some of the regime’s darkest secrets. Secrets Viktor could wield as a weapon. Grigori was the answer to Viktor’s prayers and Viktor took advantage of him. That’s what Viktor does. He uses people. And when they’re of no value to him, he throws them to the wolves.”

“Did you say any of this to Grigori?”

“Of course. But it didn’t go over terribly well. Grigori thought he could take care of himself and didn’t like being told by a journalist to watch his step. He was like an older man in love with a pretty girl. He wasn’t thinking straight. He liked being around Viktor, the cars, the parties, the houses, the expensive wine. It was like a drug. Grigori was hooked.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Two weeks ago. He was very excited. Apparently, Irina was thinking seriously about coming to London. But he was also nervous.”

“About Irina?”

“No, his security. He was convinced he was being watched.”

“By whom?”

“He didn’t go into specifics. He gave me the newest pages of his manuscript. Then he gave me a letter for safekeeping. He told me that if anything ever happened to him, a friend would look for him. He was confident this man would eventually make his way to Oxford to see me. Grigori liked this man and respected him very much. Apparently, they made some sort of pact during a long drive through the Russian countryside.” She slipped the letter into Gabriel’s hand and lit another cigarette. “I have to admit, I don’t remember hearing it. I must have been asleep at the time.”

18

YOU’VE NEVER READ IT?” Gabriel asked.

“No, never.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“Because you were once the most famous investigative reporter in Russia.”

“And?”

“Investigative reporters are natural snoops.”

“Like spies?”

“Yes, like spies.”

“I don’t read other people’s mail. It’s unseemly.”

They were seated in the Queen’s Lane Coffee House against a latticed window. Gabriel was facing the street; Olga, the busy interior. She was holding the letter in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

“I think it puts to rest the debate over whether Grigori redefected or was abducted.”

“Rather conclusively.”

Coincidentally, the letter was five sentences in length, though unlike the forged letter announcing Grigori’s redefection, it had been produced on a word processor, not written by hand. It bore no salutation, for a salutation would have been insecure. Gabriel took it back from Olga and read it again:

IF THIS IS IN YOUR POSSESSION, IVAN HAS TAKEN ME. I HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT MYSELF, SO PLEASE DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED TO KEEP THE PROMISE YOU MADE THAT NIGHT IN RUSSIA. I DO HAVE ONE FAVOR TO ASK; I AM AFRAID MY DESIRE TO REUNITE WITH MY FORMER WIFE MAY HAVE PLACED HER IN DANGER. IF YOUR OFFICERS IN MOSCOW WOULD CHECK IN ON HER FROM TIME TO TIME, I WOULD BE GRATEFUL. FINALLY, IF I MAY OFFER ONE PIECE OF ADVICE FROM THE GRAVE, IT IS THIS: TREAD CAREFULLY.

Attached to the letter with a paper clip was a three-by-five photo. It showed Grigori and his former wife seated before a vodka-laden table in happier times. Irina Bulganova was an attractive woman with short blond hair and a compact body that suggested an athletic youth. Gabriel had never seen her before. Still, he found something remotely familiar in her face.

“Do you believe it?” Olga asked.

“Which part?”

“The part about Ivan. Could he really have pulled off an operation as complex as this?”

“Ivan is KGB to the bone. His arms-trafficking network was the most sophisticated the world had ever seen. It employed dozens of former and current intelligence officers, including Grigori himself. Grigori took Ivan’s money. And then he betrayed him. In Russia, the price of betrayal is still the same.”

“Vyshaya mera,” Olga said softly.

“The highest measure of punishment.”

“Do you think he’s dead?”

“It’s possible.” Gabriel paused, then said, “But I doubt it.”

“But he disappeared a week ago.”

“It might sound like a long time, but it isn’t. Ivan will want information, everything Grigori told the British and the Americans about his network. Then I suspect the boys from Lubyanka will want a crack at him. The Russians are very patient when it comes to hostile interrogations. They refer to it as sucking a source dry.”

“How charming.”

“These are the successors of Dzerzhinsky, Yezhov, and Beria. They’re not a charming lot, especially when it comes to someone who spilled family secrets to the British and the Americans.”

“I take it you’ve done this sort of thing yourself?”

“Interrogations?” Gabriel shook his head. “To be honest, they were never my specialty.”

“How long does it take to do it right?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether the subject is cooperating or not. Even if he is, it can take weeks or months to make sure he’s told the interrogators everything they want to know. Just ask the detainees at Guantánamo Bay. Some of them have been interrogated relentlessly for years.”

“Poor Grigori. Poor foolish Grigori.”

“He was foolish. He should have never lived so openly. He also should have kept his mouth shut. He was just asking for trouble.”

“Is there any possible way to get him back?”

“It’s not out of the question. But for now my concern is you.”

Gabriel looked out the window. The sun had slipped below the tops of the colleges and the High Street was now in shadow. An Oxford city bus rumbled past, followed by a procession of students on bicycles.

“You were in contact with him, Olga. He knows everything about you. Your cover name. Your address. We have to assume Ivan now knows that, too.”

“I have a telephone number to call in case of an emergency. The British say they can collect me in a matter of minutes.”

“As you might expect, I’m not terribly impressed with British security these days.”

“Is it your intention to move me from Oxford without telling them?”

“By force, if necessary. Where’s that new British passport of yours?”

“Top drawer of my bedside table.”

“You’re going to need it, along with a change of clothing and anything else you don’t want to leave behind.”

“I need my computer and my papers. And Cassandra. I’m not going without Cassandra.”

“Who’s Cassandra?”

“My cat.”

“We’ll leave it plenty of food and water. I’ll send someone to collect it tomorrow.”

“Cassandra is a girl, Gabriel, not an it.”

“Unless she’s a seeing-eye cat, she’s not allowed on the Eurostar.”

“The Eurostar?”

“We’re going to Paris. And we have to hurry if we’re going to make the last train.”

“What time does it leave?”

Seven thirty-nine, he thought. On the dot.

19

THE OXFORD City 5 bus runs from the train station, through the shopping district of Templars Square, and over Magdalen Bridge to the distant council estate of Blackbird Leys. Gabriel and Olga boarded outside All Souls College and disembarked at the first stop in Cowley Road. Five other passengers left with them. Four went their separate ways. The fifth, a middle-aged man, walked behind them for a short time before entering the church at the corner of Jeune Street. From inside came the sound of voices raised in prayer.

“They have evening services every Wednesday.”

“Wait inside while I get your things.”

“I want to say good-bye to Cassandra and make sure she’s all right.”

“You don’t trust me to feed her?”

“I can tell you don’t like animals.”

“Actually, it’s the other way around. And I have the scars to prove it.”

They turned into Rectory Road and made their way directly to Olga’s door. Her bicycle was still leaning against the rubbish bin behind the tiny brick wall. Hanging from the door latch was a lime-green flyer advertising a new Indian takeaway. Olga removed it before inserting her key into the lock, but the key refused to turn. Then, somewhere along the darkened street, a car engine turned over. And Gabriel felt the back of his neck turn to fire.

To a normal person, the two consecutive events would probably have meant very little. But to a man like Gabriel Allon, they were the equivalent of a flashing neon sign warning of danger. Twisting his head quickly to the right, he saw the car approaching at high speed from the direction of St. Clement’s Street, headlamps doused. The driver had wide shoulders and was holding the wheel calmly with both hands. Directly behind him, protruding from the open rear window, Gabriel noticed a shape that was instantly familiar: a semiautomatic pistol fitted with a suppressor.

They were trapped, just as Grigori had been trapped before them. But this was not to be an abduction. This was a killing operation. To survive the next ten seconds would require Gabriel to play defense, something that violated decades of experience and training. Unfortunately, he had no other choice. He had come to Oxford unarmed.

He took a step back and gave the door a thunderous kick. Solid as a bulkhead, it refused to budge. Glancing to his left, he saw the tiny front garden of white gravel. As the first shots slammed into the front of the house, he seized Olga by the arm and forced her to the ground behind the stubby brick wall.

The gunfire lasted no more than five seconds-a single magazine’s worth, thought Gabriel-and the driver didn’t stop for the gunman to reload or switch weapons. Gabriel raised his head as the car rounded the slight bend in the road. He was able to confirm the make and model.

Vauxhall Insignia.

Saloon model.

Dark blue.

I believe they call it Metro Blue…

“You’re crushing me.”

“Are you all right?”

“I think so. But remind me never to let you walk me home again.”

Gabriel stayed on the ground a moment longer, then got to his feet and gave the door another kick, this one fueled by adrenaline and anger. The dead bolt gave way, and the door flew inward as if it had been hit by a blast wave. Stepping cautiously into the entrance hall, he noticed a pair of feline eyes regarding him calmly from the base of the stairs. Olga scooped up the cat and held it tightly to her breast.

“I’m not leaving here without her.”

“Just hurry, Miss Chesnikova. I’d like to be on our way before the people with the gun come back to finish the job.”