“How?”
Carter dealt an American passport onto the table. It was burgandy colored rather than blue and stamped with the word OFFICIAL.
“It’s one step below a diplomatic passport. You won’t have complete immunity, but it will definitely make the Russians think twice before laying a finger on you.”
Gabriel opened the cover. For now, the information page contained no photograph, only a name: AARON DAVIS.
“What does Mr. Davis do?”
“He works for the White House Office of Presidential Advance. As you probably know, the president will be in Moscow on Thursday and Friday for the emergency G-8 summit. Most of the White House advance team is already on the ground. I’ve arranged for a late addition to the team.”
“Aaron Davis?”
Carter nodded.
“How’s he going in?”
“The car plane.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s the unofficial name of the C-17 Globemaster that brings the presidential limousine. It also carries a large detail of Secret Service agents. Aaron Davis will board the plane during a refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland. Six hours after that, he’ll land at Sheremetyevo Airport. A U.S. Embassy vehicle will then take him to the Hotel Metropol.”
“And the escape hatch?”
“Same route, opposite direction. On Friday evening, after the final session of the summit, the Russian president will be hosting a gala dinner. The president is scheduled to return to Washington at the conclusion, along with the rest of his delegation and the traveling White House press corps. The buses depart the Metropol at 10 p.m. sharp. They’ll go straight onto the tarmac at Sheremetyevo and board the planes. We’ll have false passports for Chiara and Grigori just in case. But in reality, the Russians probably won’t be checking passports.”
“When will I arrive in Moscow?”
“The car plane is due to land at Sheremetyevo a few minutes after 4 a.m. Thursday. By my calculation, that leaves you forty-two hours on the ground in Russia. All you have to do is find some way of getting Chiara and Grigori out of that dacha and back to the Metropol by 10 p.m. Friday.”
“Without being arrested or killed by Ivan’s army of thugs.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help with that. You also have a more immediate problem. Ivan’s emissary is expecting a reply to his demands tomorrow afternoon in Paris. Unless you can convince him to push back the deadline by several days…”
Carter didn’t have the nerve to finish the thought. Gabriel did it for him.
“This entire conversation is academic.”
“I’m afraid that’s correct.”
Gabriel stared at the satellite photo of the dacha in the trees. Then at the time zone clocks arrayed along the wall. Then he closed his eyes. And he saw it all.
IT APPEARED to him as a cycle of vast paintings, oil on canvas, rendered by the hand of Tintoretto. The paintings lined the nave of a small church in Venice and were darkened by yellowed varnish. Gabriel, in his thoughts, drifted slowly past them now with Chiara at his side, her breast pressing against his elbow, her long hair brushing the side of his neck. Even with Carter’s help, getting her and Grigori out of the dacha alive would be an operational and logistical nightmare. Ivan would be playing on his home turf. All the advantages would be his. Unless Gabriel could somehow turn the tables. By way of deception…
Gabriel had to get Ivan to let down his guard. He had to keep Ivan occupied at the time of the raid. And, more pressing, he had to convince Ivan not to kill Chiara and Grigori for another four days. In order to do that, he needed one more thing from Adrian Carter. Not one, actually, but
He blinked away the vision of Venice and gazed once again at the photograph of the dacha in the trees. Yes, he thought again, he needed two more things from Adrian Carter, but they were not Carter’s to give. Only a mother could surrender them. And so, with Carter’s blessing, he entered an unoccupied office in the far corner of the annex and quietly closed the door. He dialed the isolated compound in the Adirondack Mountains. And he asked Elena Kharkov if he could borrow the only two things in the world she had left.
56
IN THE AFTERMATH, during the inevitable postmortem and deconstruction that follows an affair of this magnitude, there was spirited debate over who among its far-flung cast of characters bore the most responsibility for its outcome. One participant was not asked for an opinion and would surely not have ventured one if he had been. He was a man of few words, a man who stood a lonely post. His name was Rami, and his job was to keep watch over a national treasure, the Memuneh. Rami had been at the Old Man’s side for the better part of twenty years. He was Shamron’s
Shamron found Sergei Korovin where he said he would be, seated ramrod straight on a wooden bench near the Jeu de Paume. He was wearing a heavy woolen scarf beneath his overcoat and smoking the stub of a cigarette that left no doubt about his nationality. As Shamron sat down, Korovin raised his left arm slowly and pondered his wristwatch.
“You’re two minutes late, Ari. That’s not like you.”
“The walk took me longer than expected.”
“Bullshit.” Korovin lowered his arm. “You should know that patience isn’t one of Ivan’s strong suits. That’s why he was never selected to work in the First Chief Directorate. He was deemed too impetuous for pure espionage. We had to assign him to the Fifth, where his temper could be put to good use.”
“Breaking heads, you mean?”
Korovin gave a noncommittal shrug. “Someone had to do it.”
“He must have been a great disappointment to his father.”
“Ivan? He was an only child. He was… indulged.”
“It shows.”
Shamron removed a silver case from the pocket of his overcoat and took his time lighting a cigarette. Korovin, annoyed, gave his wristwatch another distracted glance.
“Perhaps I should have made something clear to you, Ari. This deadline was more than hypothetical. Ivan is expecting to hear from me. If he doesn’t, chances are your agent will turn up somewhere with a bullet in the back of her head.”
“That would be rather foolish, Sergei. You see, if Ivan kills my agent, he’ll lose his only chance of getting his children back.”
Korovin’s head turned sharply in Shamron’s direction. “What are you saying, Ari? Are you telling me the Americans have agreed to return Ivan’s children to Russia?”
“No, Sergei, not the Americans. It was Elena’s decision. As you might expect, it’s torn her to pieces, but she wants no more blood shed because of her husband.” Shamron paused. “And she also knows her children well enough to realize that they’ll leave Russia the moment they’re old enough and come back to her.”
Age seemed to have taken a toll on Korovin’s ability to dissemble. He exhaled a cloud of smoke into the
