“Oh, God.”
“Don’t look, my love. Just walk.”
“Oh, God.”
“Walk, Chiara. Walk.”
“Did you kill them, Gabriel? Did you do this?”
“Just keep walking, my love.”
NAVOT ENTERED the cell and saw Grigori’s face.
Bastards!
He looked at Mikhail.
“Let’s get him on his feet.”
“He’s in bad shape.”
“I don’t care. Just get him on his feet.”
Grigori screamed in agony as Mikhail and Navot pulled him upright.
“I don’t think I can walk.”
“You don’t have to.”
Navot hoisted the Russian over one shoulder and nodded to Mikhail.
“Let’s go.”
THE BACK DOORS of the Range Rover were now open. Yaakov was standing on one side, Oded on the other. A few feet away were two Russian corpses, arms flung wide, heads surrounded by halos of blood. Gabriel led Chiara past the bodies and lifted her into the back. Then he turned and saw Navot coming out of the dacha, Grigori draped over one shoulder.
“Put him in the back with Chiara and get out of here.”
Navot eased Grigori into the car while Gabriel climbed into the front passenger seat. Mikhail dug the keys from the pocket of his parka and fired the engine. As the Rover shot forward, Gabriel glanced back a final time.
Three men. Running for the trees.
He inserted a fresh magazine into the Mini-Uzi and looked at his watch: 9:11:07.
“Faster, Mikhail. Drive faster.”
THEY WERE doing just under a hundred along the deserted road, two black Range Rovers, both filled with former Russian special forces now employed by the private security service of Ivan Kharkov. In the front seat of the first vehicle, a cell phone trilled. It was Oleg Rudenko, calling from the helicopter.
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“How close?”
Very . . .
FOR REASONS that would be made clear to Gabriel in short order, the track from the dacha to the road did not run in a straight line. Viewed from an American spy satellite, it looked rather like an inverted S rendered by the hand of a young child. Viewed from the front passenger seat of a speeding Range Rover in late winter, it was a sea of white. White snow. White birch trees. And, just around the second bend, a pair of white headlamps approaching at an alarmingly rapid rate.
Mikhail instinctively hit the brakes—in hindsight, a mistake, since it gave a slight advantage on impact to the other vehicle. The air bags spared them serious injury but left Gabriel and Mikhail too dazed to resist when the Rover was stormed by several men. Gabriel briefly glimpsed the butt of a Russian pistol arcing toward the side of his head. Then there was only white. White snow. White birch trees. Chiara floating away from him, dressed all in white.
66
GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON
FOR SHAMRON, the first inkling of trouble was the sudden silence at King Saul Boulevard. Three times he asked for an explanation. Three times he received no reply.
Finally a voice. “We’ve lost them.”
“What do you mean, lost?”
They had heard a noise of some sort. Sounded like a collision. A crash. Then voices. Russian voices.
“You’re sure they were Russian?”
“We’re double-checking the tapes. But we’re sure.”
“Were they off Ivan’s property when it happened?”
“We don’t think so.”
“What about their radios?”
“Off the air.”
“Where’s the rest of the team?”
“Departing as planned.” A pause. “Unless you want to send them back in.”
Shamron hesitated. Of course he wanted to send them back. But he couldn’t. Better to lose three than six. The numbers . . .
“Tell Uzi to keep going. And no heroics. Tell them to get the hell out of there.”
“Right.”
“Keep the line open. Let me know if you hear anything.”
Shamron closed his eyes for a few seconds, then looked at Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour. The two men had heard only Shamron’s end of the conversation. It had been enough.
“What time did Ivan leave Konakovo?” Shamron asked.
“All the birds were airborne by ten past.”
“Flying time between Konakovo and the dacha?”
“One hour. Maybe a bit more if the weather’s lousy.”
Shamron looked at the clock: 9:14:56.
That would put Ivan on the ground in Vladimirskaya Oblast at approximately 10:10. It was possible he had already ordered his men to kill Gabriel and the others. Possible, thought Shamron, but not likely. Knowing Ivan, he would reserve that privilege for himself.
One hour. Maybe a bit more if the weather’s lousy.
One hour . . .
The Office did not possess the capability to intervene in that amount of the time. Neither did the Americans nor the British. At this point, only one entity did: the Kremlin . . . The same Kremlin that had permitted Ivan to sell his weapons to al-Qaeda in the first place. The same Kremlin that had allowed Ivan to avenge the loss of his wife and children. Sergei Korovin had all but admitted that Ivan paid the Russian president for the right to kidnap Grigori and Chiara. Perhaps Shamron could find a way to outbid Ivan. But how much were four lives worth to the Russian president, a man rumored to be one of the richest in Europe? And how much would they be worth to Ivan? Shamron had to make a move Ivan could not match. And he had to do it quickly.
He gazed at the clock, Zippo turning between his fingertips.
Two turns to the right, two turns to the left . . .
“I’m going to need a Russian oil company, gentlemen. A very large Russian oil company. And I’m going to need it within an hour.”
“Would you care to tell me where we’re going to get a Russian oil company?” asked Carter.
Shamron looked at Seymour. “Number 43 Cheyne Walk.”
RUDENKO’S PHONE rang again. He listened for several seconds, face blank, then asked, “How many dead?”
“We’re still counting.”
“Counting?”
“It’s bad.”
“But you’re sure it’s him?”
“No question.”
“No blood. Do you hear me? No blood.”
“I hear you.”
Rudenko severed the connection. He was about to make Ivan a very happy man. He had the one thing in the world Ivan wanted even more than his children.
He had Gabriel Allon.
THIS TIME, it was the American president who was approached by an aide. And not just any aide. His chief of staff. The exchange was whispered and brief. The president’s face remained expressionless throughout.
“Something wrong?” the British prime minister asked when the chief of staff departed.
“It appears we have a problem.”
“What sort of problem?”
The president looked across the table at his Russian counterpart.
“Trouble in the woods outside Moscow.”
“Anything we can do?”
“Pray.”
GRAHAM SEYMOUR’S Jaguar limousine was parked in Upper Brook Street. It was 6:20 a.m. in London when he climbed in the back. Flanked by a pair of Met motorcycles, he headed south to Hyde Park Corner, west on Knightsbridge, then south again on Sloane Street, all the way to Royal Hospital Road. By 6:27 a.m., the car was pulling up in front of Viktor Orlov’s mansion in Cheyne Walk, and, at 6:30, Seymour was entering Orlov’s magnificent study, accompanied by the chiming of a gold ormolu clock. Orlov, who claimed to require only three hours of sleep a night, was seated at his desk, perfectly groomed and attired, Asian market numbers streaming across his computer screens. On the giant plasma television, a BBC reporter standing outside the Kremlin was intoning gravely about a global economy on the verge of collapse. Orlov silenced him with a flick of his remote.
“What do these idiots really know, Mr. Seymour?”
“Actually, I can say with certainty they know very little.”
“You look as if you’ve had a long night. Please, sit down. Tell me, Graham, how can I help you?”
. . .
IT WAS a question Viktor Orlov would later regret asking. The conversation that followed was not recorded, at least not by MI5 or any other department of British intelligence. It was eight minutes in length, far longer than Seymour would have preferred, but this was to be expected. Seymour was asking Orlov to forever relinquish claim to something extremely valuable. In reality, this object was lost to Orlov already. Even so, he clung to it that morning, as the survivor of a bomb blast will often cling to the corpse of one less fortunate.
It was not a pleasant exchange, but this, too, was to be expected. Viktor Orlov was hardly a pleasant person, even under the best of circumstances. Voices were raised, threats issued. Orlov’s household staff, though discreet to a fault, could not help but overhear. They heard words such as duty and honor. They clearly heard the word extradition and then, a few beats later, arrest warrant . They heard a pair of names, Sukhova and Chernov, and thought they heard the British visitor say something about a review of Mr. Orlov’s political and business activities on British soil. And, finally, they heard the visitor say very clearly: “Will you just do the decent thing for once in your life? My God, Viktor! Four lives are at stake! And one of them is Grigori’s!”
At which point there was a heavy silence. The British visitor emerged from the office a moment later, a tight expression on his face, his eyes focused on his wristwatch. He took the stairs two at a time and climbed into the back of his waiting Jaguar. As the car shot away from the curb, he placed a call to an emergency line at Downing Street. Two minutes after that, he was speaking directly with the prime minister, who had excused himself from the summit breakfast to take the call. It was 6:42 a.m. in London and 9:42 a.m. at the isolated dacha in the birch forest east of Moscow.
THE BRITISH prime minister returned to the table.
“I believe it’s time for a trilateral with our friend over there.”
“I hope you have something good to offer him.”
“I do. The only question is, will he be able to fulfill his end of the bargain?”
The sight of the two leaders rising in unison sent a murmur of anxiety through the Kremlin functionaries posted around the hall as they watched their carefully planned breakfast veering dangerously toward an unscripted moment. The only person who seemed not to be surprised was the Russian president, who was on his feet by the time the British and American leaders arrived at his side of the table.
“We need to have a word,” the prime minister said. “In private.”
THEY SLIPPED quietly into an antechamber off St. George’s Hall with only their closest aides present. Like the meeting that had just taken place in Viktor Orlov’s study, it was not pleasant. Once again, voices were raised, though no one outside the room heard them. When the leaders emerged, the Russian president was smiling visibly, a rare occurrence. He was also holding a mobile phone to his ear.
Later, under questioning from the press, spokesmen for all three leaders would use precisely the same language to describe what had taken place. It was a routine scheduling matter, nothing more. Scheduling, perhaps, but hardly routine.
67
LUBYANKA SQUARE, MOSCOW
ON THE fourth floor of FSB Headquarters is a suite of rooms occupied by the organization’s smallest and most secretive unit. Known as the Department of Coordination, its staff of veteran officers handles only cases of extreme political sensitivity. Shortly before ten that morning, its chief, Colonel Leonid Milchenko, was standing rigidly next to his Finnish-made desk, a telephone to his ear. Though Milchenko effectively worked for the Russian president, direct conversations between the two were rare. This one was brief and tense. “Get it done, Milchenko. No fuckups. Are we clear?” The colonel said “Da” several times and hung up the phone.
“Vadim!”
Vadim Strelkin, his number two, poked a bald head into the room.
“What’s the problem?”
“Ivan Kharkov.”
“What now?”
Milchenko explained.
“Shit!”
“I couldn’t have said it any better myself.”
“Where’s the dacha?”
“Vladimirskaya Oblast.”
“How far out?”
“Far enough that we’re going to need a helicopter. Tell them to drop it into the square.”
“Can’t. Not today.”
“Why not?”
Strelkin nodded toward the Kremlin. “All airspace inside the outer ring road is closed because of the summit.”
“Not anymore.”
Strelkin picked up the phone on Milchenko’s desk and ordered the helicopter. “I know about the closure, idiot! Just do it!”
He slammed down the phone. Milchenko was standing at the map.
“How long before it arrives?”
“Five minutes.”
Milchenko calculated the travel time.
“We can’t possibly get there before Ivan.”
“Let me call Rudenko directly.”
“Who?”
“Oleg Rudenko. Ivan’s security chief. He used to be one of us. Maybe he can talk some sense into Ivan.”
“Talk sense into Ivan Kharkov? Vadim, perhaps I should explain something. If you call Rudenko, the first thing Ivan will do is kill those hostages.”
“Not if we tell him the order comes from the very top.”
Milchenko thought it over, then shook his head. “Ivan can’t be trusted. He’ll say they’re already dead. Even if they’re not.”
“Who are these people?”
“It’s complicated, Vadim. Which is why the president has bestowed this great honor upon me. Suffice it to say, there is a great deal of money at stake—for Russia and the president.”
“How so?”
“If the hostages live, money. If not . . .”
“No money?”
“You have a bright future, Vadim.”
Strelkin joined Milchenko at the map. “There might be another way to get some firepower out there in a hurry.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Alpha Group forces are deployed all over Moscow because of the summit. If I’m not mistaken, they’re manning all the major highways leading into the city.”
“Doing what? Directing traffic?”
“Looking for Chechen terrorists.”
But of course, thought Milchenko. They were always looking for Chechens even when there were no Chechens to be found.
“Make the call, Vadim. See if there are some Alphas along the M7.”
Strelkin did. There were. A pair of helicopters could scoop them up in under ten minutes.
“Send them, Vadim.”
“On whose authority?”
“The president’s, of course.”
Strelkin gave the order.
“You have a bright future, Vadim.”
Strelkin looked out the window. “And you have a helicopter.”
“No, Vadim, we have a helicopter. I’m not going out there alone.”
Milchenko reached for his overcoat and headed toward the door with Strelkin at his heels. Five below and snow in the air, and he was going to Vladimirskaya Oblast to save three Jews and a Russian traitor from Ivan Kharkov. Not exactly the way he’d hoped to spend the day.
THOUGH THE colonel did not know it, the four people whose lives were now in his hands were at that moment seated along the four walls of the cell, one to each wall, wrists tightly trussed at their backs, legs stretched before them, feet touching. The door to the cell was ajar; two men, guns at the ready, stood just outside. The blow that felled Mikhail had opened a deep gash above his left eye. Gabriel had been struck behind the right ear, and his neck was now a river of blood. A victim of too many concussions, he was struggling to sile
nce the bells tolling in his ears. Mikhail was looking around the interior of the cell, as if searching for a way out. Chiara was watching him, as was Grigori.
“What are you thinking?” he murmured in Russian. “Surely you’re not thinking about trying to escape?”
Mikhail glanced at the guards. “And give those apes an excuse to kill me? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“So what’s so interesting about the cell?”
“The fact that it exists at all.”
“Meaning?”
“Did you have a dacha, Grigori?”
“We had one when I was a boy.”
“Your father was Party?”
Grigori hesitated, then nodded. “Yours?”
“For a while.”
“What happened?”
“My father and the Party went their separate ways.”
“Your father was a dissident?”
“Dissident, refusenik—you pick the word, Grigori. He just came to hate the Party and everything it stood for. That’s why he ended up in your little shop of horrors.”
“Did he have a dacha?”
“Until the KGB took it from him. And I’ll tell you something, Grigori. It didn’t have a room in the cellar like this. In fact, it didn’t have a cellar at all.”
“Neither did ours.”
“Did you have a floor?”
“A crude one.” Grigori managed a smile. “My father wasn’t a very senior Party official.”
“Do you remember all the crazy rules?”
“How could you forget them?”
“No heating allowed.”
“No dachas larger than twenty-five square meters.”
“My father got around the restrictions by adding a veranda. We used to joke that it was the biggest veranda in Russia.”
“Ours was bigger, I’m sure.”
“But no cellar, right, Grigori?”
“No cellar.”
“So why was this chap allowed to build a cellar?”