“Did you consider the diplomatic consequences before plucking him from that bus stop in Argentina?”
“Of course we did. In fact, we debated long and hard about whether or not to take him. We were afraid the world would condemn us as criminals and kidnappers. We were afraid there would be severe fallout that our young and vulnerable state wasn’t prepared to withstand.”
“But, in the end, you took that bastard down. You did it because it was the right thing to do, Ari. Because it was the just thing to do.”
“We did it because we had no other choice, Gabriel. If we’d requested extradition, the Argentines would have refused and tipped off Eichmann. And then we would have lost him forever.”
“Because the police and security services were protecting him?”
“Correct.”
“Just like the FSB and the Kremlin are protecting Ivan.”
“Ivan Kharkov isn’t Adolf Eichmann. I shouldn’t think I’d need to explain the difference to you. I lost most of my family to Eichmann and the Nazis. So did you. Your mother spent the war in Birkenau and she bore Birkenau’s scars until the day she died. You bear them now.”
“Tell that to the thousands who’ve died in the wars that have been stoked by Ivan’s guns.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Gabriel. If Ivan were to stop selling the warlords guns today, someone else would do it for him tomorrow.” Shamron lifted his hand toward Carter. “Who knows? Perhaps it will be your good friend Adrian. He and his government poured weapons into the Third World whenever it suited their needs. And we’ve been known to sell to some pretty atrocious customers ourselves.”
“Congratulations, Ari.”
“For what?”
“Achieving a new personal low,” Gabriel said. “You have just compared our country to the worst man in the world in order to win an argument.”
Gabriel could see that Shamron’s resistance was beginning to weaken. He decided to press his advantage before the old warrior could reinforce his defenses.
“I’m doing this, Ari, but I can’t do it without your support.” He paused, then added, “Or your help.”
“Who’s stooping to personal lows now?”
“I learned from the master.”
Shamron tamped out his cigarette and regarded Gabriel through the remnants of the smoke. “Have you given any thought to where you’re going to put her?”
“I was thinking about letting her move into the apartment in Narkiss Street with Chiara and me, but we really don’t have enough room for her and the children.”
Shamron, by his dour expression, let it be known he didn’t find the remark even faintly amusing. “Resettling Elena Kharkov in Israel is completely out of the question. When Russia finally permitted its Jews to immigrate to Israel, a large number of non-Jewish Russians slipped into the country with them, including several serious organized crime figures. You can be certain that any number of these fine fellow countrymen of yours would be more than willing to kill Elena on Ivan’s behalf.”
“I never contemplated keeping her in Israel, Ari. She would have to go to America.”
“Drop her in Adrian’s lap? Is that your solution? We’re not talking about resettling some KGB colonel who’s used to living on government wages. Elena Kharkov is an extremely wealthy woman. She’s grown accustomed to a lifestyle few of us can even contemplate. She’ll become a problem. Most defectors eventually do.”
Shamron looked to Adrian Carter for affirmation, but Carter knew better than to inject himself into the middle of a family quarrel and maintained a mandarin silence. Shamron removed his glasses and absently polished them against his shirtfront.
“At the moment, the long-term emotional well-being of Elena and her children is the least of your problems. The first thing you have to do is devise some way of getting her back into Russia, alone, without Ivan becoming suspicious.”
Gabriel dropped an envelope on the coffee table.
“What’s that?” Shamron asked.
“Elena’s ticket home to Moscow.”
Shamron slipped on his spectacles and removed the letter from the envelope. He had no trouble reading it; Russian was one of his many languages. When he had finished, he inserted the letter back into the envelope, carefully, as though trying not to leave fingerprints.
“It’s not a bad start, Gabriel, but what about the rest of it? How are you going to get her into that apartment without Ivan’s private security service sounding the alarm? And how are you going to get her out of the country safely after she’s stolen those disks? And how are you going to keep Ivan occupied while you kidnap his children?”
Gabriel smiled. “We’re going to steal his airplane.”
Shamron dropped Elena’s letter on the coffee table.
“Keep talking, my son.”
It did not take long for Shamron to fall under Gabriel’s spell. He sat motionless in his chair, his hooded eyes half closed, his thick arms folded across his chest. Adrian Carter sat next to him, his face still an inscrutable blank mask. Unable to protect himself from the encroachment of Shamron’s smoke, he had decided to fill the room with some of his own and was now puffing rhythmically on a pipe that reeked of burning leaves and wet dog. Gabriel and Navot sat side by side on the couch like troubled youth. Navot was rubbing the raw spot on the bridge of his nose where Bella’s spectacles pinched him.
At the conclusion of Gabriel’s briefing, it was Carter who spoke first. He did so after banging his pipe on the edge of the ashtray, like a judge trying to bring an unruly court to order. “I’ve never regarded myself as having any particular insights into the French, but, based on our last meeting, I’m confident they’ll play ball with you.” He cast an apologetic glance at Shamron, who loathed the use of American sports metaphors when discussing sensitive operational details. “French law gives the security services wide latitude, especially when dealing with foreigners. And the French have never been adverse to bending those laws a little bit more when it suits their purposes.”
“I don’t like operating with the French services,” Shamron said. “They annoy me.”
“I volunteer to take the point on this one, Ari. Thanks to Gabriel, the French and I have something of a relationship.”
Shamron’s eyes moved to Gabriel. “I don’t suppose I have to ask who’s going to serve as Elena’s chaperone.”
“She won’t do it unless I go with her.”
“Why did I know that was going to be your answer?”
Carter was slowly reloading his pipe. “He can go in on his American passport. The Russians wouldn’t dare to touch him.”
“I suppose that depends on what sort of Russians you’re talking about, Adrian. There are all different sorts. First you have your run-of-the-mill FSB thugs like the ones Gabriel encountered in Lubyanka. Then there are the private thugs who work for people like Ivan. I doubt very much that they’ll be intimidated by a passport, even an American one.”
Shamron’s gaze moved from Carter to Gabriel.
“Do I need to remind you, Gabriel, that your friend Sergei made it clear that they knew exactly who you were and what would happen if you ever set foot in Russia again?”
“I’m just going along for the ride. It’s Elena’s show. All she has to do is walk into the House on the Embankment, grab Ivan’s files, and walk out again.”
“What could possibly go wrong with a plan like that?” Shamron asked sardonically of no one in particular. “How many of your brave associates do you intend to take along with you on this venture?”
Gabriel recited a list of names. “We can send them in as El Al crew and cabin staff. Then we’ll all fly out of Moscow together when it’s over.”
Adrian Carter was puffing on his freshly loaded pipe and nodding his head slowly. Shamron had settled once more into his Buddha-like pose and was staring at Navot, who was staring back at him in return.
“We’ll need the approval of the prime minister,” Shamron said.
“The prime minister will
do whatever you tell him to do,” said Gabriel. “He always does.”
“And God help us all if we create another scandal for him.” Shamron’s gaze flickered from Navot to Gabriel and back again. “Would you boys like to handle this yourselves or would you like adult supervision? I’ve actually done this a time or two.”
“We’d love your help,” Navot said. “But are you sure Gilah won’t mind?”
“Gilah?” Shamron shrugged his shoulders. “I think Gilah could use a few days to herself. You might find this hard to believe, but I’m not the easiest person to live with.”
Gabriel and Navot immediately began to laugh. Adrian Carter bit hard on the stem of his pipe in a bid to stifle the impulse to join them, but after a few seconds he was doubled over as well. “Enjoy yourselves at my expense,” Shamron murmured. “But one day you’ll be old, too.”
49
PARIS
The serious planning began the following morning when Adrian Carter returned to the gated government guesthouse off the Avenue Victor Hugo. As Carter anticipated, the negotiations went smoothly, and by that evening the DST, the French internal security service, had taken formal control of the Kharkov watch. Gabriel’s troops, exhausted after nearly two weeks of constant duty, immediately departed for Paris—all but Dina Sarid, who remained at the villa in Gassin to serve as Gabriel’s eyes and ears in the south.
It soon became clear to the DST, and to nearly everyone else in Saint-Tropez for that matter, that a pall had descended over the Villa Soleil. There were no more parties by the vast swimming pool, no more drunken day trips aboard October, and the name “Kharkov” did not grace the reservation sheets of Saint-Tropez’s exclusive restaurants. Indeed, for the first three days of the French watch Ivan and Elena were not seen at all. Only the children, Anna and Nikolai, ventured beyond the villa’s walls, once to attend a carnival on the outskirts of town and a second time to visit Pampelonne Beach, where they spent two miserable hours in the company of Sonia and their sunburned Russian bodyguards before demanding to be taken home again.
Because the DST was operating on home soil, they were highly attuned to the gossip swirling through the bars and cafés. According to one rumor, Ivan was planning to put the villa up for sale and then put to sea to heal his wounded pride. According to another, he was planning to subject Elena to a Russian divorce and leave her begging for kopeks in the Moscow Metro. There was a rumor he had beaten her black-and-blue. A rumor he’d drugged her and shipped her off to Siberia. There was even a rumor he had killed her with his bare hands and dumped her body high in the Maritime Alps. All such speculation was put to rest, however, when Elena was spotted strolling along the rue Gambetta at sunset, absent any signs of physical or emotional trauma. Ivan did not accompany her, though a large contingent of bodyguards did. One DST watcher described the security detail as “presidential” in size and intensity.
At the little apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, the events in the south were taken as confirmation that the phase of the operation known as “the small lie to cover the big lie” had worked to perfection. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, the flat was by then a beehive of hushed activity. There were surveillance photos and watch reports taped to the walls, a large-scale map of Moscow with flags and stickpins and routes marked in red, and a grease board covered in Gabriel’s stylish left-handed Hebrew script. Early in the preparation, Shamron seemed content to play the role of éminence grise. But as time drew short, and his patience thin, he began to assert himself in ways that might have bred resentment in men other than Gabriel and Uzi Navot. They were like sons to Shamron and were therefore accustomed to his bellicose outbursts. They listened when other officers might have covered their ears and took advice others might have discarded for no reason other than pride. But more than anything, thought Adrian Carter, they seemed to cherish the opportunity to be in the field one more time with the legend. So did Carter himself.
For the most part, they remained prisoners of the flat, but once each day Gabriel would take Shamron outside to walk the footpaths of the Bois de Boulogne. By then, the cruelest heat of the summer had passed, and those August afternoons in Paris were soft and fine. Gabriel pleaded with Shamron not to smoke, but to no avail. Nor could he convince him to relinquish, even for a few moments, his obsession with every detail of the operation. Alone in the park, he would say things to Gabriel he dared not say in front of Navot or the other members of the team. His nagging concerns. His unanswered questions and unresolved doubts. Even his fears. On their final outing together, Shamron was moody and distracted. In the Bagatelle Gardens, he spoke words Gabriel had never heard the night before an operation, words warning of the possibility of failure.
“You must prepare yourself for the prospect she won’t come out of that building. Give her the allotted time, plus a five-minute grace period. But if she doesn’t come out, it means she’s been caught. And if she’s caught, you can be sure Arkady Medvedev and his goons will start looking for accomplices. If, heaven forbid, she falls into their hands, there’s nothing we can do for her. Don’t even think about going into that building after her. Your first responsibility is to yourself and your team.”
Gabriel walked in silence, hands in the pockets of his jeans, eyes on the move. Shamron talked on, his voice like the beating of distant drums. “Ivan and his allies in the FSB let you walk out of Russia alive once, but you can be sure it won’t happen again. Play by the Moscow Rules, and don’t forget the Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt not get caught, Gabriel, even if it means leaving Elena Kharkov behind. If she doesn’t come out of that building in time, you have to leave. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
Shamron stopped walking and seized Gabriel’s face in both hands with unexpected force. “I destroyed your life once, Gabriel, and I won’t allow it to happen again. If something goes wrong, get to the airport and get on that plane.”
They walked back to the apartment in silence through the fading late-afternoon light. Gabriel glanced at his wristwatch. It was nearly five o’clock. The operation was about to commence. And not even Shamron could stop it now.
50
MOSCOW
It was a few minutes after seven in Moscow when the house telephone in Svetlana Federov’s apartment on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt rattled softly. She was seated in her living room at the time, watching yet another televised speech by the Russian president, and was pleased by the interruption. She silenced him with the click of a button on her remote—God, if it were only that easy—and slowly lifted the receiver to her ear. The voice on the other end of the line was instantly familiar: Pavel, the loathsome evening concierge. It seemed she had a visitor. “A gentleman caller,” added Pavel, his voice full of insinuation.
“Does he have a name?”
“Calls himself Feliks.”
“Russian?”
“If he is, he hasn’t lived here in a long time.”
“What does he want?”
“Says he has a message. Says he’s a friend of your daughter.”
I don’t have a daughter, she thought spitefully. The woman I used to call my daughter has left me to die alone in Moscow while she cavorts around Europe with her oligarch husband. She was being overly dramatic, of course, but at her age she was entitled.
“What’s he look like?”
“A pile of old clothes. But he has flowers and chocolates. Godiva chocolates, Svetlana. Your favorite.”
“He’s not a mobster or a rapist, is he, Pavel?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“Send him up, then.”
“He’s on his way.”
“Wait, Pavel.”
“What’s wrong?”