The Defector (19 page)

“You obviously don’t think that’s long enough.”

“No, I don’t.”

“The American taxpayer can’t pay the bill forever. When the CIA men leave, I’ll hire my own bodyguards.”

“What happens when the money runs out?”

“I suppose I could always sell that painting you forged for me.” She smiled. “Would you like to see it?”

She led him into the great room and stopped before a precise copy of Two Children on a Beach by Mary Cassatt. It was the second version of the painting Gabriel had produced. The first had been sold to Ivan Kharkov for two and a half million dollars and was now in the possession of French prosecutors.

“I’m not sure it matches the Adirondack décor.”

“I don’t care. I’m keeping it right where it is.”

He placed his hand to his chin and tilted his head to one side. “I think it’s better than the first one, don’t you?”

“Your brushstrokes were a bit too impasto in the first version. This one is perfect.” She looked at him. “But I don’t suppose you came all this way to talk about my children or to hear me criticize your work.”

Gabriel was silent. Elena gazed at the painting.

“You know, Gabriel, you really should have been an artist. You could have been great. And with a bit of luck, you would have never had the misfortune of meeting my husband.”

MORE THAN a hundred intelligence professionals from four countries had been involved in the Kharkov affair, and most were still vexed by a single question: Why had Elena Varlamova, the beautiful and cultured daughter of a Communist Party economic planner from Leningrad, ever married a hood like Ivan in the first place?

He had been working for the notorious Fifth Directorate of the KGB at the time of their wedding and seemed destined for a glittering career. But in the late 1980s, as the Soviet Union lay wheezing on its deathbed, his fortunes took a sudden and unexpected turn. In a desperate bid to breathe life into the moribund Soviet economy, Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced economic reforms that allowed the limited formation of investment capital. With the encouragement of his superiors, Ivan left the KGB and created one of Russia’s first privately owned banks. Aided by the hidden hand of his old colleagues, it was soon wildly profitable, and when the Soviet Union finally breathed its last, Ivan was uniquely positioned to snatch up some of its most valuable assets. Among them was a fleet of transport ships and aircraft, which he converted into one of the largest freight-forwarding companies in the world. Before long, Ivan’s boats and planes were bound for destinations in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, laden with one of the few products the Russians made well: weapons.

Ivan liked to boast he could lay his hands on anything and ship it anywhere, in some cases overnight. He cared nothing about morality, only money. He would sell to anyone, as long as they could pay. And if they couldn’t, he offered to arrange financing through his banking arm. He sold his weapons to dictators and he sold them to rebels. He sold to freedom fighters with legitimate grievances and to genocidal maniacs who slaughtered women and children. He specialized in providing weapons to regimes so beyond the pale they were unable to obtain arms from legal sources. He perfected the practice of selling weapons to both sides of a conflict, judiciously moderating the flow of arms in order to prolong the killing and maximize his profits. He destroyed countries. He destroyed peoples. And he became filthy rich in the process. For years, he had managed to keep his network of death carefully concealed. To the rest of the world, Ivan Kharkov was the very symbol of the New Russia—a shrewd investor and businessman who easily straddled East and West, collecting expensive homes, luxury yachts, and beautiful mistresses. Elena would later admit to Gabriel that she had been an enabler of Ivan’s grand deception. She had turned a blind eye to his romantic dalliances, just as she had shrouded herself in a willful ignorance when it came to the true source of his immense wealth.

But lives are sometimes upended in an instant. Gabriel’s had changed one evening in Vienna, in the time it took a detonator to ignite a charge of plastic explosive placed beneath his car. For Elena Kharkov, it was the night she overhead a telephone conversation between her husband and his chief of security, Arkady Medvedev. Confronted with the possibility that thousands of innocent people might die because of her husband’s greed, she chose to betray him rather than remain silent. Her actions led her to an isolated villa in the hills above Saint-Tropez, where she offered to help Gabriel steal Ivan’s secrets. The operation that followed had nearly ended both of their lives. One image would hang forever in Gabriel’s terrible gallery of memory: the image of Elena Kharkov, tied to a chair in her husband’s warehouse, with Arkady Medvedev’s pistol pressed to the side of her head. Arkady wanted Gabriel to reveal the location of Anna and Nikolai. Elena was prepared to die rather than answer.

You’d better pull the trigger, Arkady. Because Ivan is never getting those children.

Now, seated before a fire in the great room of the Adirondack lodge, Gabriel broke the news that Ivan had succeeded in kidnapping Grigori Bulganov, the man who had saved their lives that night. And that Olga Sukhova, Elena’s old friend from Leningrad State, had been the target of an assassination attempt in Oxford. Elena took the news calmly, as though she had been informed of a long-expected death. Then she accepted a photograph: a man standing in the arrivals hall of Heathrow Airport. The sudden darkening of her expression instantly told Gabriel his journey had not been in vain.

“You’ve seen him before?”

Elena nodded. “In Moscow, a long time ago. He was a regular visitor to our house in Zhukovka.”

“Did he come alone?”

She shook her head. “Only with Arkady.”

“Were you ever told his name?”

“I was never told their names.”

“And you never happened to overhear one?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Gabriel tried to conceal his disappointment and asked whether Elena could recall anything else. She looked down at the photograph, as if trying to wipe the dust from her memory.

“I remember that Arkady was always quite deferential in his presence. I found it rather odd because Arkady was deferential in front of no one.” She looked up at Gabriel. “Too bad you killed him. He could have told you the name.”

“The world is a much better place without the likes of Arkady Medvedev.”

“That’s true. Sometimes I actually wish I’d killed him myself.” She turned her head and stared across the room toward the painting. “The question is, has Ivan hired this same man to take my children from me?”

Gabriel took hold of Elena’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I’ve experienced Adrian’s security firsthand. There’s no way Ivan will ever find you and the children here.”

“I’d feel better knowing you were here.” She looked at him.

“Will you stay with us, Gabriel? Just for a day or two?”

“I’m not sure Grigori has a day or two to spare.”

“Grigori?” She gazed despondently into the fire. “I know what my husband and his friends from the FSB do to those who betray them. You should forget about Grigori. Better to focus on the living.”

34

UPSTATE NEW YORK

GABRIEL AGREED to spend the night and return to Washington the next morning. After settling into a second-floor guest room, he went in search of a telephone. As a security precaution, Ed Fielding had removed all the phones from the main lodge. Indeed, only one telephone on the entire property was capable of reaching the outside world. It was located in the second lodge, on the desk in Fielding’s office. A small sign warned that all calls, regardless of origin or destination, were monitored and recorded. “It’s no joke,” Fielding said as he handed Gabriel the receiver. “As one professional to another.”

Fielding stepped outside and closed the door. Unwilling to betray normal Office communication procedures, Gabriel dialed King Saul Boulevard on a business line and asked for Uzi Navot. Their conversation was brief and conducted in a form of Hebrew no NSA supercomputer could ever decipher. In the space of a few seconds, Navot managed to give Gabriel a thorough update. Irina Bulganova was safely on the ground in Moscow, Gabriel’s team was headed back to Israel, and Chiara was on her way back to Umbria, accompanied by her bodyguards. In fact, Navot added after checking the time, they were probably there by now.

Gabriel severed the connection and debated whether to ring her. He decided it wasn’t safe. Making contact with the Office on an Agency line was one thing, but calling Chiara at home or on her mobile was quite another. He would have to wait until he was outside the CIA’s bubble before trying to reach her. Replacing the receiver, he thought of the words Elena had just spoken. You should forget about Grigori. Better to focus on the living. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he had made a promise he couldn’t possibly keep. Perhaps it was time to go home and look after his wife. He opened the door and stepped into the corridor. Ed Fielding was there, leaning against the wall.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“Feel like taking a ride?”

“Where?”

“I know you’re concerned about Elena. I thought I’d put your mind at ease by showing you some of our security measures.”

“Even though I work for a foreign service?”

“Adrian says you’re family. That’s all I need to know.”

Gabriel followed Fielding into the bitter late-afternoon cold. He had expected the tour to be conducted by Jeep. Instead, Fielding escorted him to an outbuilding where two snowmobiles glistened beneath overhead fluorescent lights. From a metal cabinet, the CIA man produced a pair of helmets, two parkas, two neoprene face masks, and two pairs of wind-stopper gloves. Five minutes later, after a perfunctory lesson on the operation of a snowmobile, Gabriel was hurtling through the woods in Fielding’s blizzardlike wake, bound for a distant corner of the estate.

They inspected the westernmost edge of the property first, then the southern border, which was marked by a branch of the St. Regis River. Two weeks earlier, a black bear had crossed onto the estate from the other side of the stream and triggered the motion detectors and infrared heat sensors. Fielding had responded to the intrusion by dispatching a pair of guards, who confronted the bear within thirty seconds of its arrival. Faced with the prospect of becoming a rug, the bear had wisely retreated to the other side of the stream and had not been seen since.

“Are there any other wild animals we need to worry about?” asked Gabriel.

“Just deer, bobcats, beavers, and the occasional wolf.”

“Wolves?”

“We had one just the other day. A big one.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“Only if you surprise them.”

Fielding twisted the throttle and vanished in a cloud of white. Gabriel followed him along the winding bank of the streambed to the eastern edge of the property. It was marked by a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. Every fifty yards or so was a sign warning that the property was private and that anyone foolish enough to attempt a crossing would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. As they sped side by side along the fence, Gabriel noticed Fielding talking over his radio. By the time they reached the road, it was clear something was wrong. Fielding stopped and motioned for Gabriel to do the same.

“You have a phone call.”

Gabriel didn’t have to ask who had placed the call. Only one person knew where he was or how to reach him.

“What’s it about?”

“He didn’t say. He wants to talk to you right away, though.”

Fielding led Gabriel back to the compound by the shortest route possible. It was dusk when they arrived, and the two Adirondack lodges were little more than silhouettes against the fiery horizon. Elena Kharkov stood on the porch of the main house, her arms folded beneath her breasts, her long dark hair moving in the frigid wind. Gabriel and Fielding swept past her without a word and entered the staff lodge. The telephone in Fielding’s office was off the hook. Gabriel raised the receiver swiftly to his ear and heard the voice of Adrian Carter.

IF THERE was indeed a recording of the conversation that followed, it did not exist for long. Carter would never speak of it, except to say that it was among the most difficult of his long career. The only other witness was Ed Fielding. The security man could not hear Carter’s words, but could see the terrible toll they were taking. He saw a hand gripping the telephone with such force the knuckles were white. And he saw the eyes. The unusually bright green eyes now burning with a terrifying rage. As Fielding slipped quietly from the room, he realized he had never seen such rage before. He did not know what his friend Adrian Carter was saying to the legendary Israeli assassin. But he was certain of one thing. Blood was going to flow. And men were going to die.

PART THRE

All Even

35

TIBERIAS, ISRAEL

ARI SHAMRON had long ago lost the gift of sleep. Like most men, it had been taken from him late in life, but for reasons that were uniquely his. He had told so many lies, spun so many deceptions, he could no longer tell fact from fiction, truth from untruth. Condemned by his work to remain forever awake, Shamron spent nights wandering ceaselessly through the secure file rooms of his past, reliving old cases, walking old battlefields, confronting enemies long since vanquished.

And then there was the telephone. Throughout Shamron’s long and turbulent career, it had rung at the most appalling hours, usually with word of death. Because he had devoted his life to safeguarding the State of Israel, and by extension the Jewish people, the calls had been a veritable catalog of horrors. He had been told about acts of war and acts of terror, of hijackings and murderous suicide bombings, of embassies and synagogues reduced to rubble. And once, many years earlier, he had been awakened by the news that a man he adored as a son had just lost his family in a car bombing in Vienna. But the call from Uzi Navot that arrived late that evening was nearly one too many. It caused Shamron to unleash a cry of rage and to seize his chest in anguish. Gilah, who was lying beside him at the time, would later say she feared her husband was having another heart attack. Shamron quickly steadied himself and snapped off a few brisk commands before gently hanging up the phone.