holding hands as they climbed into the back of the Mercedes sedan parked outside the old Arsenal. All signs pointed to a night of passion at the apartment near the cathedral. That indeed might have been the case were it not for the woman waiting outside the entrance in the snow.
She had skin like alabaster and was wearing a leather jacket and fishnet stockings. Had her makeup not been smeared from a night of weeping, she might have been very pretty. The couple who emerged from the back of the Mercedes initially paid her little attention. A waif, they must have thought. A working girl. Maybe a drug addict. Certainly no threat to a man like Vladimir Chernov. After all, Chernov had once served as bodyguard to the last leader of the Soviet Union. Chernov could handle anything. Or so he thought.
Her voice was plaintive at first, childlike. She referred to Chernov by his first name, clearly a shock, and accused him of many crimes of the heart. He had made declarations of love, she said. He had made promises about the future. He had pledged financial support for the child she was now caring for alone. With Ludmila now seething, Chernov tried to tell the woman she had obviously mistaken him for someone else. This earned him a hard slap across the face, which had the effect of drawing the bodyguards from the car.
The melee that ensued lasted precisely twenty-seven seconds. A video recording of it exists and is used for training purposes to this day. It must be said that, at the outset, Chernov’s Russian bodyguards acted with admirable restraint. Confronted with a young woman who was clearly disturbed and delusional, they tried to bring her gently under control and remove her from the immediate area. Her reaction, two hard kicks to their shins, served only to escalate matters. The situation intensified with the arrival of four gentlemen who just happened to be walking along the quiet street. The largest of the four, a heavy-shouldered man with strawberry blond hair, went in first, followed by a dark-haired man with a pockmarked face. Words were exchanged, threats were made, and, finally, punches were thrown. These were not the wild, undisciplined blows thrown by amateurs. They were tight and brutal, the kind that were capable of inflicting permanent damage. Under the right circumstances, they could even cause instant death.
But instant death was not their goal, and the four gentlemen tempered their assault to make certain it only rendered their victims unconscious. Once the men were incapacitated, two parked cars came suddenly to life. Vladimir Chernov was thrown into one, his bodyguards into the other. As for Ludmila Akulova, she escaped with only a verbal warning, delivered in fluent Russian by a man with a bloodless face and eyes the color of glacial ice. “If you say a word about this, we will kill you. And then we’ll kill your parents. And then we’ll kill every member of your family.” As the cars sped away, Gabriel found himself unable to look away from Ludmila’s stricken face. He believed in the women. The women, he said, were Russia’s only hope.
45
THE HOUSE stood in the Haute-Savoie region of France, in an isolated valley above the shores of Lake Annecy. Neat and tidy, with a steeply pitched roof, it was more than a kilometer from its nearest neighbor. Yossi had moved in the previous evening, posing as a British writer of mysteries, and had carefully prepared the premises for the interrogation that was to come. He was standing outside as the two cars made their way slowly up the winding road, snow falling through the beams of their headlamps.
Gabriel emerged alone from the front passenger seat of the first car, a Renault station wagon, and followed Yossi into the sitting room of the house. The furniture was piled in one corner, the tile floor covered entirely in plastic drop cloths. In the open hearth burned a large fire, just as Gabriel had ordered. He added two more logs, then headed outside again. A third car had pulled into the drive. Eli Lavon was leaning against the hood.
“Were we followed?” Gabriel asked.
Lavon shook his head.
“You’re sure, Eli?”
“I’m sure.”
“Take Yossi. Go back to Geneva. Wait there with the others. We won’t be long.”
“I’m staying here with you.”
“You’re a watcher, Eli. The best there ever was. This isn’t for you.”
“Maybe it isn’t for you, either.”
Gabriel ignored the remark and glanced at Navot, who was behind the wheel of the Renault. A moment later, three Russians, sedated and trussed, were wobbling drunkenly toward the entrance of the house. Lavon placed a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder.
“Be careful in there, Gabriel. If you’re not, you might lose more than another wife.”
Lavon climbed behind the wheel of the car without another word and headed down the valley. Gabriel watched the red tail-lights disappear behind a veil of snow, then turned and headed into the house.
THEY STRIPPED them to their underwear and secured them to a trio of metal outdoor chairs. Gabriel gave each of the three men a shot of stimulant, small doses for the bodyguard and driver, a larger one for Vladimir Chernov. His head rose slowly from his chest, and, blinking rapidly, he surveyed his surroundings. His two men were seated directly in front of him, eyes wide with terror. Standing in a line behind them were Yaakov, Mikhail, Navot, and Gabriel. In Gabriel’s left hand was a.45 caliber Glock with a suppressor screwed onto the end of the barrel. In his right was a photograph: a man standing in the arrivals hall of Heathrow Airport. Gabriel glanced at Yaakov, who tore away the packing tape wrapped around the lower portion of Chernov’s head. Now missing a good deal of hair, Chernov screamed in pain. Gabriel hit him hard across the brow with the Glock and told him to shut his mouth. Chernov, blood streaming into his left eye, obeyed.
“Do you know who I am, Vladimir?”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life. Please, whoever you are, this is all some sort-”
“It’s no mistake, Vladimir. Take a good look at my face. You’ve seen it before, I’m sure.”
“No, never.”
“We’re getting off to a bad start, you and I. You’re lying to me. And if you continue to lie to me, you’ll never leave this place. Tell me the truth, Vladimir, and you and your men will be allowed to live.”
“I
“Not even in photographs? Surely they must have given you a photo of me.”
“Who?”
“The men who came to you when they wanted to hire Comrade Zhirlov to find me.”
“I’ve never heard of this man. I am a legitimate security consultant. I demand you release me and my men at once. Otherwise-”
“Otherwise what, Vladimir?”
Chernov fell silent.
“You have a narrow window of opportunity, Vladimir. A
“I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
“Are you sure that’s the answer you want to give me, Vladimir?”
“It is the truth!”
Gabriel shook his head sadly and walked behind Chernov’s driver. Gabriel had been told his name. He had already forgotten it. His name didn’t matter. He didn’t need a name where he was going. Chernov, judging by his insolent expression, clearly thought Gabriel was bluffing. Obviously, the Russian had never heard of Ari Shamron’s twelfth commandment: We do not wave our guns around like gangsters and make idle threats. We draw our weapons in the field for one reason and one reason only. Gabriel placed the gun to the back of the man’s head and tilted the angle slightly downward. Then, with his eyes boring into Chernov’s face, he squeezed the trigger.
