Inevitably, the American president suffered in comparison. The moment his plane appeared above the horizon, a number of Russian officials and commentators paraded before the cameras to denounce him and all he stood for. The global economic crisis was America’s fault, they howled. America had been brought low by greed and hubris, and she was threatening to take the rest of the world down with her. The sun was setting on America. And good riddance.
Gabriel found little disagreement in the salons and restaurants of the Hotel Metropol. By midmorning, it was overrun with reporters and bureaucrats, all proudly wearing their official G-8 credentials as if a piece of plastic dangling from a strand of nylon gave them entrée to the inner sanctums of power and prestige. Gabriel’s credentials were blue, which signified he had access mere mortals did not. They were hanging around his neck as he took a light breakfast beneath the vaulted stained-glass ceiling in the famed Metropol restaurant, wielding his BlackBerry throughout the meal like a shield. Leaving the restaurant, he was cornered by a group of French reporters who demanded to know his opinion of the new American stimulus plan. Though Gabriel evaded their questions, the French were clearly impressed by the fact he addressed them fluently in their native language.
In the lobby, Gabriel noticed several American reporters clustered around the Teatralnyy Prospekt entrance and quickly slipped out the back door into Revolution Square. In summer, the espla nade was crowded with market stalls where it was possible to buy anything from fur hats and nesting dolls to busts of the murderers Lenin and Stalin. Now, in the depths of winter, only the bravest dared to venture there. Remarkably, it was clear of snow and ice. When the wind briefly subsided, Gabriel caught a whiff of the deicer the Russians used to achieve this result. He remembered stories Mikhail had told him about the powerful chemicals Russians poured onto their streets and sidewalks. The stuff could destroy a pair of shoes in a matter of days. Even the dogs refused to walk on it. In springtime, the streetcars used to burst into flames because their wiring had been eaten away by months of exposure. That was how Mikhail had celebrated the arrival of spring as a child in Russia—with the burning of the trams.
Gabriel spotted him a moment later, standing next to Eli Lavon just outside Resurrection Gate. Lavon was holding a briefcase in his right hand, meaning Gabriel had not been followed leaving the Metropol. Moscow Rules . . . Gabriel headed left through the shadowed archway of the gate and entered the vast expanse of Red Square. Standing at the foot of Savior Tower, wearing a heavy overcoat and fur hat, was Uzi Navot. The tower’s gold-and-black clock face read 11:23. Navot pretended to set his watch by it.
“How was the entry at Sheremetyevo?”
“No problem.”
“And the hotel?”
“No problem.”
“Good.” Navot shoved his hands into his pocket. “Let’s take a walk, Mr. Davis. It’s better if we walk.”
THEY HEADED toward St. Basil’s, heads down, shoulders hunched against the biting wind: the Moscow shuffle. Navot wished to spend as little time as possible in Gabriel’s presence. He wasted no time getting down to business.
“We went onto the property last night to have a look around.”
“Who’s we?”
“Mikhail and Shmuel Peled from Moscow Station.” He paused, then added, “And me.”
Gabriel gave him a sideways glance. “You’re here to supervise, Uzi. Shamron made it clear he didn’t want you involved in any direct operational way. You’re too senior to get arrested.”
“Let me see if I understand this correctly. It’s all right for me to tangle with a Russian assassin in a Swiss bank, but it’s verboten for me to take a walk in the woods?”
“Is that what it was, Uzi? A walk in the woods?”
“Not quite. The dacha is set a kilometer back from the road. The track leading to it is bordered by birch forest on both sides. It’s tight. Only one vehicle can get through at a time.”
“Is there a gate?”
“No gate, but the track is always blocked by security guards in a Range Rover.”
“How close were you able to get to the dacha?”
“Close enough to see that Ivan makes two poor bastards stand outside all the time. And close enough to plant a wireless camera.”
“How’s the signal?”
“Not bad. We’ll be fine as long as we don’t get six feet of snow tonight. We can see the front door, which means we can see if anyone’s coming or going.”
“Who’s monitoring the shot?”
“Shmuel and a girl from Moscow Station.”
“Where are they?”
“Holed up in a crummy little hotel in the nearest town. They’re pretending to be lovers. Apparently, the girl’s husband likes to knock her around. Shmuel wants to take her away and start a new life. You know the story, Gabriel.”
“The satellite photos show guards behind the house.”
“We saw them, too. They keep at least three men back there at all times. They’re static, spaced about a hundred yards apart. With night-vision goggles, we had no trouble seeing them. In daylight”—Navot shrugged his heavy shoulders—“they’ll go down like targets in a shooting gallery. We’ll just have to go in while it’s still dark, and try not to freeze to death before nine o’clock.”
They had passed St. Basil’s and were nearing the southeast corner of the Kremlin. Directly before them was the Moscow River, frozen and covered by gray-white snow. Navot nudged Gabriel to the right and led him along the embankment. The wind was now at their backs. After they passed a pair of bored-looking Moscow militiamen, Gabriel asked whether Navot had seen anything at the dacha to warrant a change in plan. Navot shook his head.
“What about the guns?”
“The weapons room at the embassy has everything. Just tell me what you want.”
“A Beretta 92 and a Mini-Uzi, both with suppressors.”
“You sure the Mini will do?”
“It’s going to be tight inside the dacha.”
They passed another pair of militiamen. To their right, floating above the red walls of the ancient citadel, was the ornate yellow-and-white façade of the Great Kremlin Palace, where the G-8 summit was now under way.
“What’s the status of the Range Rover?”
“We took delivery of it last night.”
“Black?”
“Of course. Ivan’s boys only drive black Range Rovers.”
“Where did you get it?”
“A dealership in north Moscow. Shamron’s going to blow a gasket when he sees the price tag.”
“License plates?”
“Taken care of.”
“How long is the drive from the Metropol?”
“In a normal country, it would be two and a half hours tops. Here . . . Mikhail wants to pick you up at 2 a.m., just to make sure there are no problems.”
They had reached the southwestern corner of the Kremlin. On the other side of the river stood a colossal gray apartment building crowned by a revolving Mercedes-Benz star. Known as the House on the Embankment, it had been built by Stalin in 1931 as a palace of Soviet privilege for the most elite members of the nomenklatura. During the Great Terror, he had turned it into a house of horrors. Nearly eight hundred people, one-third of the building’s residents, had been hauled out of their beds and murdered at one of the killing sites that ringed Moscow. Their punishment was virtually always the same: a night of beatings, a bullet in the back of the head, a hasty burial in a mass grave. Despite its blood-soaked history, the House on the Embankment was now considered one of Moscow’s most exclusive addresses. Ivan Kharkov owned a luxury apartment on the ninth floor. It was among his most prized possessions.
Gabriel looked at Navot and noticed he was staring at the sad little park across the street from the apartment building: Bolot naya Square, scene of perhaps the most famous argument in Office history.
“I should have broken your arm that night. None of this would have happened if I’d dragged you into the car and pulled you o
ut of Moscow with the rest of the team.”
“That’s true, Uzi. None of it would have happened. We would have never found Ivan’s missiles. And Elena Kharkov would be dead.”
Navot ignored the remark. “I can’t believe we’re back here. I swore to myself I would never set foot in this town again.” He glanced at Gabriel. “Why in God’s name would Ivan want to keep an apartment in a place like that? It’s haunted, that building. You can almost hear the screaming.”
“Elena once told me that her husband was a devout Stalinist. Ivan’s house in Zhukovka was built on a plot of land once owned by Stalin’s daughter. And when he was looking for a pied-à-terre near the Kremlin, he bought the flat in the House on the Embankment. The original owner of Ivan’s apartment was a senior man in the Foreign Ministry. Stalin’s henchmen suspected him of being a spy for the Germans. They took him to Butovo and put a bullet in the back of his head. Apparently, Ivan loves to tell the story.”
Navot shook his head slowly. “Some people go for nice kitchens and good views. But when Ivan is looking at a place, he demands a bloody past.”
“He’s unique, our Ivan.”
“Maybe that explains why he bought several hundred acres of worthless birch forests and swampland outside Moscow.”
Yes, thought Gabriel. Maybe it did. He looked back down the Kremlin Embankment and saw Eli Lavon approaching, briefcase still in his right hand. As Lavon walked past, he gave Gabriel a little jab in the small of the back. It meant the meeting had gone on long enough. Navot removed his glove and extended his hand.
“Go back to the Metropol. Keep your head down. And try not to worry. We’ll get her back.”
Gabriel shook Navot’s hand, then turned and headed back toward Resurrection Gate.
THOUGH NAVOT did not know it, Gabriel disobeyed the order to return to his room at the Hotel Metropol and made his way to Tverskaya Street instead. Pausing outside the office building at No. 6, he stared at the posters in the window of Galaxy Travel. One showed a Russian couple sharing a champagne lunch along the ski slopes of Courchevel; the other, a pair of Russian nymphs tanning themselves on the beaches of the Côte d’Azur. The irony seemed lost on Irina Bulganova, former wife of the defector Grigori Bulganov, who was seated primly at her desk, telephone to her ear. There were many things Gabriel wanted to tell her but couldn’t. Not yet. And so he stood there alone, watching her through the frosted glass. Reality is a state of mind, he thought. Reality can be whatever you want it to be.
59
GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON
IF GABRIEL earned high marks for his grace under pressure during the final hours before the operation, the same, unfortunately, could not be said of Ari Shamron. Upon his return to London, he made a base camp for himself inside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington and used it to launch raids on targets stretching from Tel Aviv to Langley. The officers on the Ops Desk at King Saul Boulevard grew so weary of Shamron’s outbursts, they drew lots to determine who would have the misfortune of taking his calls. Only Adrian Carter managed not to lose patience with him. As a grounded fieldman himself, he knew the feeling of utter helplessness Shamron was experiencing. The extraction plan was Gabriel’s; Shamron could only operate the levers and pull the strings. And even then, he was heavily dependent on Carter and the Agency. It violated Shamron’s core faith in the principles of kachol v’lavan. Left to his own devices, the Old Man would have walked into Ivan’s dacha in the woods and done the job himself. And only a fool would have bet against him. “He’s done things none of us can imagine,” Carter said in Shamron’s defense. “And he’s got the scars to prove it.”
At 6 p.m. that evening, Shamron headed to the American Embassy in Mayfair for the opening act. A young CIA officer, a fresh-faced girl who looked as though she had just finished her junior year abroad, greeted him in Upper Brook Street. She escorted him past the Marine Guard, then into a secure elevator that bore him downward into the bowels of the annex. Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour were already there, seated on the top deck of the amphitheater-shaped Ops Center. Shamron took a seat at Carter’s right and looked at one of the large screens at the front of the room. It showed two aircraft sitting on a tarmac outside Washington, D.C. Both belonged to the 89th Airlift Wing based at Andrews Air Force Base. Both were fueled and ready for departure.
At 7 p.m., Carter’s telephone rang. He brought the receiver swiftly to his ear, listened in silence for a few seconds, then hung up.
“He’s pulling up to the gate. It looks like we’re on, gentlemen.”
THERE WAS a time in Washington when everyone in government and journalism could recite the name of the Soviet ambassador to the United States. But these days few people outside Foggy Bottom and the State Department press corps had ever heard of Konstantin Tretyakov. Though fluent in English, the Russian Federation’s ambassador rarely appeared on television and never threw parties anyone would bother to attend. He was a forgotten man in a city where Moscow’s envoy had once been treated almost like a head of state. Tretyakov was the worst thing a person could be in Washington. He was irrelevant.
The ambassador’s official CV described him as an “America expert” and career diplomat who had served in many important Western posts. It left out the fact his career had nearly been derailed in Oslo when he was caught with his hand in the embassy’s petty-cash drawer. Nor did it mention that he occasionally drank too much. Or that he had one brother who worked as a spy for the SVR and another who was part of the Russian president’s inner circle of siloviki at the Kremlin. All this unflattering material, however, was contained in the CIA’s dossier, a copy of which had been given to Ed Fielding to assist in his preparation for the Andrews end of the operation. The CIA security man had found the file highly entertaining. He had joined the Agency in the darkest days of the Cold War and had spent several decades fighting the Soviets and their proxies on secret battlefields around the globe. A glance at the ambassador’s file reassured Fielding his career had not been in vain.
He was standing beneath the crest of the 89th Airlift Wing when Tretyakov’s motorcade drew to a halt outside the passenger terminal. Despite the fact the ambassador was now inside one of the most secure facilities in the national capital region, he was protected by three layers of security: his own Russian bodyguards, a detail of Diplomatic Security agents, and several officers from Andrews base security. Fielding had no trouble picking out the ambassador when he emerged from the back of his limousine—the dossier had contained a copy of Tretyakov’s official portrait along with several surveillance photos—but Fielding covered his preparation by approaching the ambassador’s factotum instead. The aide corrected Fielding by pointing to Tretyakov, who now had a superior smile on his face as if amused by American incompetence. Fielding pumped the ambassador’s hand and introduced himself as Tom Harris. Apparently, Mr. Harris had no title or reason for being at Andrews other than to shake the ambassador’s hand.
“As you can probably guess, Mr. Ambassador, the Kharkov children are a little nervous. Mrs. Kharkov would like you to see them alone, without aides or security.”
“Why would the children be nervous, Mr. Harris? They’re going back to Russia where they belong.”
“Are you saying you refuse to meet Anna and Nikolai without aides or bodyguards, Mr. Ambassador? Because if that’s the case, the deal is off.”
The ambassador raised his chin a bit. “No, Mr. Harris, that is not the case.”
“Wise decision. I would hate to think what would happen if Ivan Kharkov ever found out you personally blew the deal to get his children back over some silly question of protocol.”
“Watch your tone, Mr. Harris.”
Fielding had no intention of watching his tone. In fact, he was just getting started.
“I take it you’ve seen photographs of the Kharkov children?”
The ambassador nodded.
“You’re confident you can identify them by sight?”
“Very.”
“That’s good
. Because under no circumstances are you to approach or touch the children. You may ask them two questions, no more. Are these conditions acceptable to you, Mr. Ambassador?”
“What choice do I have?”
“None whatsoever.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Please extend your arms straight out from your sides and spread your feet.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because I have to search you before letting you anywhere near those children.”
“This is outrageous.”
“I would hate for Ivan Kharkov to find out you—”
The ambassador extended his arms and spread his feet. Fielding took his time with the search and made sure it was as invasive and mortifying as possible. When the search was over, he squirted liquid desanitizer on his hands.
“Two questions, no touching. Are we clear, Mr. Ambassador?”
“We’re clear, Mr. Harris.”
“Follow me, please.”
IT WAS a small room, hung with photographs of the installation’s storied past: presidents departing on historic journeys, POWs returning from years of captivity, flag-draped coffins coming home for burial in American soil. Had photographers been present that afternoon, they would have captured an image of great sadness: a mother holding her children, possibly for the last time. But there were no photographers, of course, because the mother and children were not there—at least, not officially. As for the two flights that would soon tear this family apart, they did not exist, either, and no records of them would ever find their way into the control tower’s logbook.
They were huddled together along a couch of black vinyl. Elena, dressed in blue jeans and a shearling coat, was seated in the center, an arm around each child. Their faces were buried in her collar, and they remained that way long after the Russian ambassador entered the room. Elena refused to look at him. Her lips were pressed to Anna’s forehead, her gaze focused on the pale gray carpet.