The defector

building: Bolot naya Square, scene of perhaps the most famous argument in Office history.

“I should have broken your arm that night. None of this would have happened if I’d dragged you into the car and pulled you out of Moscow with the rest of the team.”

“That’s true, Uzi. None of it would have happened. We would have never found Ivan’s missiles. And Elena Kharkov would be dead.”

Navot ignored the remark. “I can’t believe we’re back here. I swore to myself I would never set foot in this town again.” He glanced at Gabriel. “Why in God’s name would Ivan want to keep an apartment in a place like that? It’s haunted, that building. You can almost hear the screaming.”

“Elena once told me that her husband was a devout Stalinist. Ivan’s house in Zhukovka was built on a plot of land once owned by Stalin’s daughter. And when he was looking for a pied-a-terre near the Kremlin, he bought the flat in the House on the Embankment. The original owner of Ivan’s apartment was a senior man in the Foreign Ministry. Stalin’s henchmen suspected him of being a spy for the Germans. They took him to Butovo and put a bullet in the back of his head. Apparently, Ivan loves to tell the story.”

Navot shook his head slowly. “Some people go for nice kitchens and good views. But when Ivan is looking at a place, he demands a bloody past.”

“He’s unique, our Ivan.”

“Maybe that explains why he bought several hundred acres of worthless birch forests and swampland outside Moscow.”

Yes, thought Gabriel. Maybe it did. He looked back down the Kremlin Embankment and saw Eli Lavon approaching, briefcase still in his right hand. As Lavon walked past, he gave Gabriel a little jab in the small of the back. It meant the meeting had gone on long enough. Navot removed his glove and extended his hand.

“Go back to the Metropol. Keep your head down. And try not to worry. We’ll get her back.”

Gabriel shook Navot’s hand, then turned and headed back toward Resurrection Gate.

THOUGH NAVOT did not know it, Gabriel disobeyed the order to return to his room at the Hotel Metropol and made his way to Tverskaya Street instead. Pausing outside the office building at No. 6, he stared at the posters in the window of Galaxy Travel. One showed a Russian couple sharing a champagne lunch along the ski slopes of Courchevel; the other, a pair of Russian nymphs tanning themselves on the beaches of the Cote d’Azur. The irony seemed lost on Irina Bulganova, former wife of the defector Grigori Bulganov, who was seated primly at her desk, telephone to her ear. There were many things Gabriel wanted to tell her but couldn’t. Not yet. And so he stood there alone, watching her through the frosted glass. Reality is a state of mind, he thought. Reality can be whatever you want it to be.

59

GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON

IF GABRIEL earned high marks for his grace under pressure during the final hours before the operation, the same, unfortunately, could not be said of Ari Shamron. Upon his return to London, he made a base camp for himself inside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington and used it to launch raids on targets stretching from Tel Aviv to Langley. The officers on the Ops Desk at King Saul Boulevard grew so weary of Shamron’s outbursts, they drew lots to determine who would have the misfortune of taking his calls. Only Adrian Carter managed not to lose patience with him. As a grounded fieldman himself, he knew the feeling of utter helplessness Shamron was experiencing. The extraction plan was Gabriel’s; Shamron could only operate the levers and pull the strings. And even then, he was heavily dependent on Carter and the Agency. It violated Shamron’s core faith in the principles of kachol v’lavan. Left to his own devices, the Old Man would have walked into Ivan’s dacha in the woods and done the job himself. And only a fool would have bet against him. “He’s done things none of us can imagine,” Carter said in Shamron’s defense. “And he’s got the scars to prove it.”

At 6 p.m. that evening, Shamron headed to the American Embassy in Mayfair for the opening act. A young CIA officer, a fresh-faced girl who looked as though she had just finished her junior year abroad, greeted him in Upper Brook Street. She escorted him past the Marine Guard, then into a secure elevator that bore him downward into the bowels of the annex. Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour were already there, seated on the top deck of the amphitheater-shaped Ops Center. Shamron took a seat at Carter’s right and looked at one of the large screens at the front of the room. It showed two aircraft sitting on a tarmac outside Washington, D.C. Both belonged to the 89th Airlift Wing based at Andrews Air Force Base. Both were fueled and ready for departure.

At 7 p.m., Carter’s telephone rang. He brought the receiver swiftly to his ear, listened in silence for a few seconds, then hung up.

“He’s pulling up to the gate. It looks like we’re on, gentlemen.”

THERE WAS a time in Washington when everyone in government and journalism could recite the name of the Soviet ambassador to the United States. But these days few people outside Foggy Bottom and the State Department press corps had ever heard of Konstantin Tretyakov. Though fluent in English, the Russian Federation’s ambassador rarely appeared on television and never threw parties anyone would bother to attend. He was a forgotten man in a city where Moscow’s envoy had once been treated almost like a head of state. Tretyakov was the worst thing a person could be in Washington. He was irrelevant.

The ambassador’s official CV described him as an “America expert” and career diplomat who had served in many important Western posts. It left out the fact his career had nearly been derailed in Oslo when he was caught with his hand in the embassy’s petty-cash drawer. Nor did it mention that he occasionally drank too much. Or that he had one brother who worked as a spy for the SVR and another who was part of the Russian president’s inner circle of siloviki at the Kremlin. All this unflattering material, however, was contained in the CIA’s dossier, a copy of which had been given to Ed Fielding to assist in his preparation for the Andrews end of the operation. The CIA security man had found the file highly entertaining. He had joined the Agency in the darkest days of the Cold War and had spent several decades fighting the Soviets and their proxies on secret battlefields around the globe. A glance at the ambassador’s file reassured Fielding his career had not been in vain.

He was standing beneath the crest of the 89th Airlift Wing when Tretyakov’s motorcade drew to a halt outside the passenger terminal. Despite the fact the ambassador was now inside one of the most secure facilities in the national capital region, he was protected by three layers of security: his own Russian bodyguards, a detail of Diplomatic Security agents, and several officers from Andrews base security. Fielding had no trouble picking out the ambassador when he emerged from the back of his limousine-the dossier had contained a copy of Tretyakov’s official portrait along with several surveillance photos-but Fielding covered his preparation by approaching the ambassador’s factotum instead. The aide corrected Fielding by pointing to Tretyakov, who now had a superior smile on his face as if amused by American incompetence. Fielding pumped the ambassador’s hand and introduced himself as Tom Harris. Apparently, Mr. Harris had no title or reason for being at Andrews other than to shake the ambassador’s hand.

“As you can probably guess, Mr. Ambassador, the Kharkov children are a little nervous. Mrs. Kharkov would like you to see them alone, without aides or security.”

“Why would the children be nervous, Mr. Harris? They’re going back to Russia where they belong.”

“Are you saying you refuse to meet Anna and Nikolai without aides or bodyguards, Mr. Ambassador? Because if that’s the case, the deal is off.”

The ambassador raised his chin a bit. “No, Mr. Harris, that is not the case.”

“Wise decision. I would hate to think what would happen if Ivan Kharkov ever found out you personally blew the deal to get his children back over some silly question of protocol.”

“Watch your tone, Mr. Harris.”

Fielding had no intention of watching his tone. In fact, he was just getting started.

“I take it you’ve seen photographs of the Kharkov children?”

The ambassador nodded.

“You’re confident you can identify them by sight?”