This novel, like the previous books in the Gabriel Allon series, could not have been written without the assistance of David Bull, who truly is among the finest art restorers in the world. I spoke to many intelligence officers, diplomats, ambassadors, and Bureau of Diplomatic Security agents while preparing this manuscript—men and women who, for obvious reasons, I cannot thank by name. Suffice it to say that because of them I know far more about embassy security procedures—and the way in which the United States would respond to an attack like the one portrayed in the novel—than I would ever put in a work of entertainment during a time of war. I would be remiss, however, if I did not extend a warm thanks to Margaret Tutwiler, the former undersecretary of state who was serving as the American ambassador to Morocco on September 11, 2001. Her descriptions of that day, some terrifying, others uproariously funny, provided me with a unique perspective of what it is like to be inside an American embassy in a time of crisis. I am honored to call her a friend, and grateful for her service.
The remarkable Bob Woodward generously shared with me his knowledge of the cooperation between the CIA and Egyptian security services. The eminent Washington orthopedist Dr. Benjamin Schaeffer taught me how to crudely treat a bullet wound in the field, while Dr. Andrew Pate, the renowned anesthesiologist of Charleston, South Carolina, explained the side effects of repeated ketamine injections and the symptoms of idiopathic paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia. Martha Rogers, a former federal prosecutor and now a much-in-demand Washington defense attorney, reviewed the case against the fictitious Sheikh Abdullah. Alex Clarke, my British editor, accompanied me on a fascinating journey through Finsbury Park and Walthamstow in the days after last summer’s London airline bomb plot, while Marie Louise Valeur Jaques and Lars Schmidt Møller gave me a tour of Copenhagen that I will never forget. A special thanks to the housepainter who verbally assaulted my wife and children on the Groenburgwal in Amsterdam. He unwittingly provided the inspiration for an opening chapter.
I interviewed many Islamists while serving as a correspondent for United Press International in Cairo in the late 1980s, but Journey of the Jihadist by Fawaz A. Gerges gave me additional insights into the minds of Egypt’s religious radicals, as did A Portrait of Egypt by Mary Anne Weaver. While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer and Menace in Europe by Claire Berlinski helped sharpen my thoughts on the dilemma facing Europe today, especially the Netherlands, while Londonistan by Melanie Phillips gave me a deeper understanding of the crisis now confronting Great Britain. Ghost Plane by Stephen Grey contained many compelling personal accounts of those who have become ensnared, in some cases innocently, in the CIA program of “extraordinary rendition.” Over Here, Raymond Seitz’s memoir of his tenure as American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, helped me create the world of Robert Halton.
I was spared much embarrassment by the sure and careful hand of my copy editor, Tony Davis, whose great-uncle John W. Davis served as American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s from 1918 to 1921. Had he defeated Calvin Coolidge for president in 1924, the post of American ambassador to London would have produced six presidents instead of just five. Louis Toscano, my personal editor and longtime friend, made countless improvements to the manuscript, as did my literary agent, Esther Newberg of ICM in New York. A special thanks to Chris Donovan, who ably shouldered some of the research burden, and to a friend in the FBI who helped me get my terminology straight. It goes without saying that none of this would have been possible without the support of the remarkable team of professionals at Putnam—Ivan Held, Marilyn Ducksworth, and especially my editor, Neil Nyren—but I shall say it in any case.
Last, I wish to extend the deepest gratitude and love to my children, Lily and Nicholas, who spent their August vacation roaming Europe’s extremist hot spots, and to my wife, the brilliant NBC News Today correspondent Jamie Gangel. She listened patiently while I worked out the plot and themes of the novel, skillfully edited each draft, and helped drag me across the finish line with minutes to spare on my deadline. Orwell once described writing a book as “a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” He neglected to mention that the only people who suffer more than the writer himself are the loved ones forced to live with him.
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2008 by Daniel Silva
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
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materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Silva, Daniel, date.
Moscow rules / Daniel Silva.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-0-399-15501-7
1. Allon, Gabriel (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Terrorism—Prevention—Fiction. 3. Intelligence
officers—Fiction. 4. Moscow (Russia)—Fiction. 5. Military weapons—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.I5443M
813’.6—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Jeff Zucker, Ron Meyer, Linda Rappaport, and Michael Gendler,
for their friendship, wisdom, and guidance.
And as always, for my wife, Jamie,
and my children, Lily and Nicholas.
Don’t look back. You are never completely alone.
THE MOSCOW RULES
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
PART ONE - THE SUMMONS
1 - COURCHEVEL, FRANCE
2 - UMBRIA, ITALY
3 - ASSISI, ITALY
4 - ASSISI, ITALY
5 - LLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA
6 - ROME
7 - ROME
8 - VATICAN CITY
9 - VATICAN CITY
10 - BEN-GURION AIRPORT, ISRAEL
11 - JERUSALEM
12 - ST. PETERSBURG
13 - MOSCOW
14 - NOVODEVICHY CEMETERY
15 - MOSCOW
16 - MOSCOW
17 - MOSCOW
18 - FSB HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW
19 - FSB HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW
PART TWO - THE RECRUITMENT
20 - BEN-GURION AIRPORT, ISRAEL
21 - JERUSALEM
22 - JERUSALEM
23 - GEORGETOWN
24 - GEORGETOWN
25 - DUMBARTON OAKS, GEORGETOWN
26 - DUMBARTON OAKS, GEORGETON
27 - LONDON
28 - LONDON
29 - ST. JAME’S, LONDON
30 - CHELSEA, LONDON
31 - GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND
32 - GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND
33 - THAMES HOUSE, LONDON
34 - HAVERMORE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
35 - LONDON
36 - SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
37 - SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
38 - SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
39 - GASSIN, FRANCE
40 - SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
41 - SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
42 - SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
43 - THE MASSIF DES MAURES, FRANCE
44 - THE MASSIF DES MAURES, FRANCE
45 - THE MASSIF DES MAURES, FRANCE
46 - THE MASSIF DES MAURES, FRANCE
47 - SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
PART THREE - THE DEFECTION
48 - PARIS
49 - PARIS
50 - MOSCOW
51 - GENEVA
52 - VILLA SOLEIL, FRANCE
53 - NICE, FRANCE
54 - MOSCOW
55 - MOSCOW
56 - SAINT-TROPEZ, MOSCOW
57 - MOSCOW
58 - MOSCOW
59 - GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON
60 - MOSCOW
61 - SHEREMET YEVO 2 AIRPORT, MOSCOW
62 - MOSCOW
63 - LUBYANKA SQUARE, MOSCOW
64 - KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA
65 - KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA
66 - KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA
67 - KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA
68 - MOSCOW
69 - BOLOTNAYA SQUARE, MOSCOW
70 - MOSCOW
PART FOUR - THE HARVEST
71 - VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA
72 - VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA
73 - VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
THE SUMMONS
1
COURCHEVEL, FRANCE
The invasion began, as it always did, in the last days of December. They came by armored caravan up the winding road from the floor of the Rhône Valley or descended onto the treacherous mountaintop airstrip by helicopter and private plane. Billionaires and bankers, oil tycoons and metal magnates, supermodels and spoiled children: the moneyed elite of a Russia resurgent. They streamed into the suites of the Cheval Blanc and the Byblos and commandeered the big private chalets along the rue de Bellecôte. They booked Les Caves nightclub for private all-night parties and looted the glittering shops of the Croissette. They snatched up all the best ski instructors and emptied the wineshops of their best champagne and cognac. By the morning of the twenty-eighth there was not a hair appointment to be had anywhere in town, and Le Chalet de Pierres, the famous slope-side restaurant renowned for its fire-roasted beef, had stopped taking reservations for dinner until mid-January. By New Year’s Eve, the conquest was complete. Courchevel, the exclusive ski resort high in the French Alps, was once more a village under Russian occupation.
Only the Hôtel Grand Courchevel managed to survive the onslaught from the East. Hardly surprising, devotees might have said, for, at the Grand, Russians, like those with children, were quietly encouraged to find accommodations elsewhere. Her rooms were thirty in number, modest in size, and discreet in appointment. One did not come to the Grand for gold fixtures and suites the size of football pitches. One came for a taste of Europe as it once was. One came to linger over a Campari in the lounge bar or to dawdle over coffee and Le Monde in the breakfast room. Gentlemen wore jackets to dinner and waited until after breakfast before changing into their ski attire. Conversation was conducted in a confessional murmur and with excessive courtesy. The Internet had not yet arrived at the Grand and the phones were moody. Her guests did not seem to mind; they were as genteel as the Grand herself and trended toward late middle age. A wit from one of the flashier hotels in the Jardin Alpin once described the Grand’s clientele as “the elderly and their parents.”
The lobby was small, tidy, and heated by a well-tended wood fire. To the right, near the entrance of the dining room, was Reception, a cramped alcove with brass hooks for the room keys and pigeonholes for mail and messages. Adjacent to Reception, near the Grand’s single wheezing lift, stood the concierge desk. Early in the afternoon of the second of January, it was occupied by Philippe, a neatly built former French paratrooper who wore the crossed golden keys of the International Concierge Institute on his spotless lapel and dreamed of leaving the hotel business behind for good and settling permanently on his family’s truffle farm in Périgord. His thoughtful dark gaze was lowered toward a list of pending arrivals and departures. It contained a single entry: Lubin, Alex. Arriving by car from Geneva. Booked into Room 237. Ski rental required.
Philippe cast his seasoned concierge’s eye over the name. He had a flair for names. One had to in this line of work. Alex . . . short for Alexander, he reckoned. Or was it Aleksandr? Or Aleksei? He looked up and cleared his throat discreetly. An impeccably groomed head poked from Reception. It belonged to Ricardo, the afternoon manager.
“I think we have a problem,” Philippe said calmly.
Ricardo frowned. He was a Spaniard from the Basque region. He didn’t like problems.
“What is it?”
Philippe held up the arrivals sheet. “Lubin, Alex.”
Ricardo tapped a few keys on his computer with a manicured forefinger.
“Twelve nights? Ski rental required? Who took this reservation?”
“I believe it was Nadine.”
Nadine was the new girl. She worked the graveyard shift. And for the crime of granting a room to someone called Alex Lubin without first consulting Ricardo, she would do so for all eternity.
“You think he’s Russian?” Ricardo asked.
“Guilty as charged.”
Ricardo accepted the verdict without appeal. Though senior in rank, he was twenty years Philippe’s junior and had come to rely heavily upon the older man’s experience and judgment.
“Perhaps we can dump him on our competitors.”
“Not possible. There isn’t a room to be had between here and Albertville. ”
“Then I suppose we’re stuck with him—unless, of course, he can be convinced to leave on his own.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Plan B, of course.”
“It’s rather extreme, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but it’s the only way.”
The former paratrooper accepted his orders with a crisp nod and began planning the operation. It commenced at 4:12 P.M., when a dark gray Mercedes sedan with Geneva registration pulled up at the front steps and sounded its horn. Philippe remained at his pulpit for a full two minutes before donning his greatcoat at considerable leisure and heading slowly outside. By now the unwanted Monsieur Alex Lubin— twelve nights, ski rental required—had left his car and was standing angrily next to the open trunk. He had a face full of sharp angles and pale blond hair arranged carefully over a broad pate. His narrow eyes were cast downward into the trunk, toward a pair of large nylon suitcases. The concierge frowned at the bags as if he had never seen such objects before, then greeted the guest with a glacial warmth.
“May I help you, Monsieur?”
The question had been posed in English. The response came in the same language, with a distinct Slavic accent.
“I’m checking into the hotel.”
“Really? I wasn’t told about any pending arrivals this afternoon. I’m sure it was just a slipup. Why don’t you have a word with my colleague at Reception? I’m confident he’ll be able to rectify the situation.”
Lubin murmured
something under his breath and tramped up the steep steps. Philippe took hold of the first bag and nearly ruptured a disk trying to hoist it out. He’s a Russian anvil salesman and he’s brought along a case filled with samples. By the time he had managed to heave the bags into the lobby, Lubin was slowly reciting his confirmation number to a perplexed-looking Ricardo, who, try as he might, had been unable to locate the reservation in question. The problem was finally resolved— “A small mistake by one of our staff, Monsieur Lubin. I’ll be certain to have a word with her”—only to be followed by another. Due to an oversight by the housekeeping staff, the room was not yet ready. “It will just be a few moments,” Ricardo said in his most silken voice. “My colleague will place your bags in the storage room. Allow me to show you to our lounge bar. There will be no charge for your drinks, of course.” There would be a charge—a rather bloated one, in fact—but Ricardo planned to spring that little surprise when Monsieur Lubin’s defenses were at their weakest.
Sadly, Ricardo’s optimism that the delay would be brief turned out to be misplaced. Indeed, ninety additional minutes would elapse before Lubin was shown, sans baggage, to his room. In accordance with Plan B, there was no bathrobe for trips to the wellness center, no vodka in the minibar, and no remote for the television. The bedside alarm clock had been set for 4:15 A.M. The heater was roaring. Philippe covertly removed the last bar of soap from the bathroom, then, after being offered no gratuity, slipped out the door, with a promise that the bags would be delivered in short order. Ricardo was waiting for him as he came off the lift.
“How many vodkas did he drink in the bar?”
“Seven,” said Ricardo.
The concierge put his teeth together and hissed contemptuously. Only a Russian could drink seven vodkas in an hour and a half and still remain on his feet.
“What do you think?” asked Ricardo. “Mobster, spy, or hit man?”
It didn’t matter, thought Philippe gloomily. The walls of the Grand had been breached by a Russian. Resistance was now the order of the day. They retreated to their respective outposts, Ricardo to the grotto of Reception, Philippe to his pulpit near the lift. Ten minutes later came the first call from Room 237. Ricardo endured a Stalinesque tirade before murmuring a few soothing words and hanging up the phone. He looked at Philippe and smiled.