“And the second reason?”
“It wouldn’t have been a wise investment in time and resources.”
“Would you care to explain?”
“Certainly,” said Ivan, his tone suddenly convivial. “As everyone in the world knows, the Americans have a policy against negotiating with kidnappers and terrorists. But you Israelis operate differently. Because you are a small country, life is very precious to you. That means you’ll negotiate at the drop of a hat when innocent life is at stake. My God, you’ll even trade dozens of proven murderers in order to retrieve the bodies of your dead soldiers. Your love of life makes you a weak people, Allon. It always has.”
“So you calculated we would bring pressure to bear on the Americans to return the children?”
“Not on the Americans,” Ivan said. “On Elena. My former wife is rather like the Jews: devious and weak.”
“Why the pause between Grigori’s abduction and Chiara’s?”
“The tsar decreed it. Grigori was a test case of sorts. Our president wanted to see how the British would react to a clear provocation on their soil. When he saw only weakness, he allowed me to push the knife in deeper.”
“By kidnapping my wife and making a play for your children.”
“Correct,” said Ivan. “As far as our president was concerned, your wife was a legitimate target. After all, Allon, you and your American friends carried out an illegal operation on Russian soil last summer—an operation that resulted in the deaths of several of my men, not to mention the theft of my family.”
“And if Elena had refused to return Nikolai and Anna?”
Ivan smiled. “Then I was certain I would get you.”
“So now you have me, Ivan. Let the others go.”
“Mikhail and Grigori?” Ivan shook his head. “They betrayed my trust. And you know what we do with traitors, Allon.”
“Vyshaya mera.”
Ivan raised his chin in a show of mock admiration.
“Very impressive, Allon. I see you’ve picked up a bit of Russian during your travels in our country.”
“Let them go, Ivan. Let Chiara go.”
“Chiara? Oh, no, Allon, that is not possible, either. You see, you took my wife. Now I’m going to take yours. That is justice. Just like it says in your Jewish book. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn, wound for wound.”
“It’s called Exodus, Ivan.”
“Yes, I know. Chapter 21, if memory serves. And your laws state very clearly that I am permitted to take your wife since you took mine. Too bad you didn’t have a child. I would take that, too. But the PLO already did that, didn’t they? In Vienna. His name was Daniel, was it not?”
Gabriel lunged at him. Ivan stepped deftly away and allowed Gabriel to pitch headlong into the snow. The guards let him lie there a moment—a precious moment, thought Gabriel—before lifting him once more to his feet. Ivan brushed the snow from his face.
“I know things, too, Allon. I know you were there in Vienna that night. I know you watched the car explode. I know you tried to pull your wife and son out of the flames. Do you remember what your son looked like when you finally pulled him from the fire? From what I hear, it wasn’t good.”
Another futile lunge. Another fall into the snow. Again the guards let him lie there, face burning with cold. And with rage.
Time . . . Precious time . . .
They lifted him upright again. This time, Ivan didn’t bother removing the snow.
“But let us return to the topic of betrayal, Allon. How were you able to discover where I was keeping Grigori and your wife?”
“Anton Petrov told me.”
Ivan’s face reddened. “And how did you get to Petrov?”
“Vladimir Chernov.”
The eyes narrowed. “And Chernov?”
“You were betrayed again, Ivan—betrayed by someone you thought was a friend.”
The blow landed in Gabriel’s abdomen. Unprepared for it, he doubled over, thus leaving himself exposed to Ivan’s knee. It sent him to the snow again, this time at Chiara’s feet. She gazed down at him, her face a mask of terror and grief. Ivan spat and squatted at Gabriel’s side.
“Don’t pass out on me just yet, Allon, because I have one more question. Would you like to watch your wife die? Or would you prefer to die in front of your wife?”
“Let her go, Ivan.”
“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wife for wife.”
He looked at his bodyguards.
“Put this garbage on his feet.”
71
VLADIMIRSKAYA OBLAST, RUSSIA
NAVOT WAS the first to spot the helicopter. It was coming from the direction of Moscow, flying dangerously fast a couple hundred feet above the ground. Ninety seconds later, two more just like it flashed overhead.
“Go back, Oded.”
“What about our orders?”
“To hell with our orders. Go back!”
TIME ...
Time was slipping away from them. It stole silently through the forest, birch tree to birch tree. Time was now their enemy. Gabriel knew he had to seize hold of it. And for that he needed Ivan’s help. Keep him talking, he thought. Bad things happen when Ivan stops talking.
For now, Ivan was wordlessly leading the procession of death along a snowy forest path, one massive hand wrapped around Chiara’s arm. Flanked by bodyguards, Gabriel, Mikhail, and Grigori followed.
Keep him talking . . .
“What caused the depressions in the forest, Ivan?”
“Why are you so damn interested in those depressions?”
“They remind me of something.”
“I’m not surprised. How did you find them?”
“Satellites. They show up nicely from space. Very straight. Very even.”
“They’re old, but the men who dug them did a good job. They used a bulldozer. It’s still here if you’d like to have a look. It stopped working years ago.”
“So how do you open up the earth now, Ivan?”
“Same method, new machine. It’s American. Say what you want about the Americans, they still make a damn good bulldozer.”
“What’s in the pits, Ivan?”
“You’re a smart boy, Allon. You seem to know a bit about our history. You tell me.”
“I assume they’re mass graves from the Great Terror.”
“Great Terror? This is a Western slur invented by Koba’s enemies.”
Koba was Stalin’s Party name. Koba was Ivan’s hero.
“What would you call the systematic torture and murder of three-quarters of a million people, Ivan?”
Ivan appeared to give the matter serious consideration. “I believe I would call it a long overdue pruning of the forest. The Party had been in power for nearly twenty years. There was a great deal of deadwood that needed to be cleared away. And you know what happens when wood is chopped, Allon.”
“Splinters must fall.”
“That’s right. Splinters must fall.”
Ivan translated a portion of the exchange for his Russian-speaking bodyguards. They laughed. Ivan laughed, too.
Keep him talking . . .
“How did this place work, Ivan?”
“You’ll find out in a minute or two.”
“When was it in operation? ’Thirty-six? ’Thirty-seven?”
Ivan stopped walking. So did everyone else.
“It was ’thirty-seven—the summer of ’thirty-seven, to be precise. It was the time of the troikas. Do you know about the troikas, Allon?”
Gabriel did. He paid the information out slowly, deliberately. “Stalin was getting annoyed at the slow pace of the killings. He wanted to speed things up, so he created a new way of putting the accused on trial: the troikas. One Party member, one NKVD officer, and a public prosecutor. It wasn’t necessary for the accused to be present during his trial. Most were sentenced without ever knowing they were even under investigation. Most trials lasted ten minutes. Some less.”
“And
appeals were not permitted,” Ivan added with a smile. “They won’t be permitted now, either.”
He nodded to the pair of bodyguards who were holding Grigori upright. The procession began moving again.
Keep him talking. Bad things happen when Ivan stops talking.
“I suppose the killing took place inside the dacha. That’s why it has a cellar with a special room in it—a room with a drain in the center of the floor. And that’s why the track is winding instead of straight. Stalin’s henchmen wouldn’t have wanted the neighbors to know what was going on here.”
“And they never did. The condemned were always picked up after midnight and brought here in black cars. They were taken straight into the dacha and given a good beating to make them easy to handle. Then it was down to the cellar. Seven grams of lead in the nape of the neck.”
“And then?”
“They were thrown into carts and brought out here to the graves.”
“Who’s buried out here, Ivan?”
“By the summer of ’thirty-seven, most of the heavy cutting had already been done. Koba just had to clear away the brush.”
“The brush?”
“Mensheviks. Anarchists. Old Bolsheviks who’d been associated with Lenin. A few priests, kulaks, and aristocrats for good measure. Anyone Koba thought could possibly pose a threat was liquidated. Then their families were liquidated, too. There’s a real revolutionary stew buried beneath these woods, Allon. They all sleep together. Some nights, you can almost hear them arguing about politics. And the best part is, no one even knows they’re here.”
“Because you bought the land after the fall of the Soviet Union to make sure the dead stayed buried?”
Ivan stopped walking. “Actually, I was asked to buy the land.”
“By whom?”
“My father, of course.”
Ivan had answered without hesitation. Annoyed by Gabriel’s inquiries at first, he now actually seemed to be enjoying the exchange. Gabriel reckoned it must be easy to unburden one’s secrets to a man who would soon be dead. He tried to frame another question that would keep Ivan talking, but it wasn’t necessary. Ivan resumed his lecture without further prompting.
“When the Soviet Union collapsed, it was a dangerous time for the KGB. There was talk about throwing open the archives. Airing dirty laundry. Naming names. The old guard was horrified. They didn’t want the KGB dragged through the mud of history. But they had other motivations for keeping the secrets, too. You see, Allon, they weren’t planning to stay out of power for long. Even then, they were plotting their comeback. They succeeded, of course. The KGB, by another name, is once again running Russia.”
“And you preside over the last mass grave of the Great Terror.”
“The last? Hardly. You can’t put a shovel in the soil of Russia without hitting bone. But this one is quite large. Apparently, there are seventy thousand souls buried beneath these trees. Seventy thousand. If it ever became public . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he were momentarily at a loss for words. “Let us say it might cause considerable embarrassment inside the Kremlin.”
“Is that why the president is so willing to tolerate your activities?”
“He gets his cut. The tsar takes a cut of everything.”
“How much did you have to pay him for the right to kidnap my wife?”
Ivan made no response. Gabriel pressed him to see if he could provoke another outburst of anger.
“How much, Ivan? Five million? Ten? Twenty?”
Ivan wheeled around. “I’m tired of your questions, Allon. Besides, we haven’t much farther to go. Your unmarked grave awaits you.”
Gabriel looked beyond Chiara’s shoulder and saw a mound of fresh earth, covered by a dusting of snow. He told her he loved her. Then he closed his eyes. He was hearing things again.
Helicopters.
72
VLADIMIRSKAYA OBLAST, RUSSIA
COLONEL LEONID Milchenko could finally see the property: four frozen streams meeting in a frozen marsh, a small dacha with a hole blown in the front door, a line of people walking slowly through a birch forest.
He opened the mic on his headset.
“Do you see them?”
The pilot’s helmet moved up and down rapidly.
“How close can you get?”
“Edge of the marsh.”
“That’s at least three hundred meters away.”
“That’s as close as I can put this thing down, Colonel.”
“What about the Alphas?”
“Fast rope insertion. Right into the trees.”
“Nobody dies.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
Nobody dies . . .
Who was he kidding? This was Russia. Someone always died.
. . .
TEN MORE paces through the snow. Then Ivan heard the helicopters, too. He stopped. Cocked his head, doglike. Shot a glance at Rudenko. Started walking again.
Time . . . Precious time . . .
NAVOT’S MESSAGE flashed across the screens of the annex.
HELICOPTERS INBOUND . . .
Carter covered his telephone and looked at Shamron.
“The FSB team confirms a line of people walking into the trees. It looks as if they’re alive, Ari!”
“They won’t be for long. When will those Alpha Group forces be on the ground?”
“Ninety seconds.”
Shamron closed his eyes.
Two turns to the right, two turns to the left . . .
THE BURIAL pit opened before them, a wound in the flesh of Mother Russia. The ashen sky wept snow as they filed slowly toward it, accompanied by the thumping of distant rotors. Big rotors , thought Gabriel. Big enough to make the forest shake. Big enough to make Ivan’s men restless. Ivan, too. Suddenly he was shouting at Grigori in Russian, exhorting him to walk faster to his death. But Gabriel, in his thoughts, was pleading for Grigori to slow his pace. To stumble. To do anything possible to allow the helicopters time to arrive.
Just then, the first swept in at treetop level, leaving a temporary blizzard in its wake. Ivan was briefly lost in the whiteout. When he reemerged, his face was contorted with rage. He shoved Grigori toward the edge of the pit and began screaming at his guards in Russian. Most were no longer paying attention. A few of his mutinous legion were watching the helicopter settling at the edge of the marshland. The others had their eyes on the western sky, where two more helicopters had appeared.
Four bodyguards remained loyal to Ivan. At his command they placed the condemned in a line at the edge of the pit, heels against the edge, for Ivan had decreed that all were to be shot in the face. Gabriel was placed at one end, Mikhail at the other, Chiara and Grigori in the center. At first Grigori was positioned next to Gabriel, but apparently that wouldn’t do. In a burst of rapid Russian, his gun flailing wildly, Ivan ordered the guards to quickly move Grigori and place Chiara at Gabriel’s side.
As the exchange was being made, two more helicopters thundered in from the west. Unlike the first, they did not streak past but hovered directly overhead. Ropes uncoiled from their bellies, and in an instant black-suited special forces were descending rapidly through the trees. Gabriel heard the sound of weapons dropping into the snow and saw arms raising in surrender. And he glimpsed two men in overcoats running awkwardly toward them through the trees. And he saw Oleg Rudenko trying desperately to remove the Makarov from Ivan’s grasp. But Ivan would not relinquish it. Ivan wanted his blood.
Ivan gave his security chief a single mighty shove in the chest that sent him tumbling into the snow. Then he pointed the Makarov directly into Gabriel’s face. He did not pull the trigger. Instead, he smiled and said, “Enjoy watching your wife die, Allon.”
The Makarov moved to the right. Gabriel hurled himself toward Ivan but could not reach him before the gun exploded with a deafening roar. As he toppled face-first into the snow, two Alpha Group men immediately leapt onto his back and pinned him to the frozen ground. For several agonizing seconds, he struggl
ed to free himself, but the Russians refused to allow him to move or to lift his head. “My wife!” he shouted at them. “Did he kill my wife?” Whether they answered, he did not know. The gunshot had robbed him of the ability to hear. He was aware only of a titanic physical struggle taking place near his shoulder. Then, a moment later, he glimpsed Ivan being led away through the trees.
Only then did the Russians help Gabriel to rise. Twisting his head quickly around, he saw Chiara weeping over a fallen body. It was Grigori. Gabriel dropped to his knees and tried to console her, but she seemed unaware of his presence. “They never killed her,” she was screaming. “Irina is alive, Grigori! Irina is alive!”
PART FIVE
The Reckoning
73
JERUSALEM
IN THE DAYS following the conclusion of the G-8 summit in Moscow, three seemingly unconnected news stories broke in quick succession. The first concerned Russia’s uncertain future; the second, its dark past. The last managed to touch upon both, and ultimately would prove to be the most controversial. But then, that was to be expected, grumbled a few of the old hands at British intelligence, since the subject of the story was none other than Grigori Bulganov.
The first story unfolded exactly one week after the summit and had for its backdrop the Russian economy—more to the point, its all-important energy industry. Because it was good news, at least from Moscow’s point of view, the Russian president chose to make the announcement himself. He did so in a Kremlin news conference, flanked by several of his most senior aides, all veterans of the KGB. In a terse statement, delivered with his trademark glare, the president announced that Viktor Orlov, the dissident former oligarch now residing in London, had finally been brought to heel. All of Orlov’s shares in Ruzoil, the Siberian oil giant, were to be immediately placed under the control of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned oil-and-gas monopoly. In exchange, said the president, Russian authorities had agreed to drop all criminal charges against Orlov and withdraw their request for his extradition.