Moscow Rules

the handcuffs and motioned for Gabriel to get out. A car had pulled up behind them; the interrogator was standing in the glow of the parking lamps, stroking his little beard as though deciding on a suitable place to carry out an execution. Then Gabriel noticed his suitcase lying in a puddle of mud, next to the ziplock bag containing his possessions. The interrogator nudged the bag toward Gabriel with the toe of his shoe and pointed toward a smudge of yellow light on the horizon.

“The Ukrainian border. They’re expecting you.”

“Where’s Olga?”

“I suggest you get moving before we change our minds, Mr. Allon. And don’t come back to Russia again. If you do, we will kill you. And we won’t rely on a pair of Chechen idiots to do the job for us.”

Gabriel collected his belongings and started toward the border. He waited for the crack of a pistol and the bullet in his spine, but he heard nothing but the sound of the cars turning around and starting back to Moscow. With their headlights gone, the heavy darkness swallowed him. He kept his eyes focused on the yellow light and walked on. And, for a moment, Olga was walking beside him. Her life is now in your hands, she reminded him. Ivan kills anyone who gets in his way. And if he ever finds out his own wife was my source, he won’t hesitate to kill her, too.

PART TWO. THE RECRUITMENT

20 BEN-GURION AIRPORT, ISRAEL

Wake up, Mr. Golani. You’re almost home.”

Gabriel opened his eyes slowly and gazed out the window of the first-class cabin. The lights of the Coastal Plain lay in a glittering arc along the edge of the Mediterranean, like a strand of jewels painted by the hand of Van Dyck.

He turned his head a few degrees and looked at the man who had awakened him. He was twenty years younger than Gabriel, with eyes the color of granite and a fine-boned, bloodless face. The diplomatic passport in his blazer pocket identified him as Baruch Goldstein of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His real name was Mikhail Abramov. Bodyguard jobs were not exactly Mikhail’s specialty. A former member of the Sayeret Metkal special forces, he had joined the Office after assassinating the top terrorist masterminds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He had one other attribute that had made him the perfect candidate to escort Gabriel out of Eastern Europe and back to Israel. Mikhail had been born in Moscow to a pair of dissident scientists and spoke fluent Russian.

They had been traveling together for the better part of a day. After crossing the border, Gabriel had surrendered himself to a waiting team of Ukrainian SBU officers. The SBU men had taken him to Kiev and handed him over to Mikhail and two other Office security men. From Kiev, they had driven to Warsaw and boarded the El Al flight. Even on the plane, Shamron had taken no chances with Gabriel’s safety. Half of the first-class cabin crew were Office agents, and, before takeoff, the entire aircraft had been carefully searched for radioactive material and other toxins. Gabriel’s food and drink had been kept in a separate sealed container. The meal had been prepared by Shamron’s wife, Gilah. “It’s the Office version of glatt kosher,” Mikhail had said. “Sanctified under Jewish law and guaranteed to be free of Russian poison.”

Gabriel tried to sit up, but his kidney began to throb again. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain to subside. Mikhail, a nervous flier by nature, was now drumming on his tray table with his fingertip.

“You’re giving me a headache, Mikhail.”

Mikhail’s finger went still. “Did you manage to get any rest?”

“Not much.”

“You should have watched your step on those KGB stairs.”

“It’s called the FSB now, Mikhail. Haven’t you read the papers lately? The KGB doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Where did you ever get that idea? They were KGB when I was growing up in Moscow and they’re KGB now.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll be on the ground in a few minutes. A reception team will be waiting for you on the tarmac. After you finish delivering your report, you can sleep for a month.”

“Unless my report makes that impossible.”

“Bad?”

“Something tells me you’ll know soon enough, Mikhail.”

An electronic ping sounded over the cabin’s audio system. Mikhail looked up at the flashing SEAT BELT sign and tapped Gabriel on the forearm.“You’d better buckle up. You wouldn’t want the flight attendant to get angry with you.”

Gabriel followed Mikhail’s gaze and saw Chiara making her way slowly down the aisle. Dressed in a flattering blue El Al uniform, she was sternly reminding passengers to straighten their seat backs and stow their tray tables. Mikhail swallowed the last of his beer and absently handed her the empty bottle.

“The service on this flight was dreadful, don’t you think?”

“Even by El Al standards,” Gabriel agreed.

“I think we should institute a training program immediately.”

“Now, that’s the kind of thinking that’s going to get you a job in the executive suite of King Saul Boulevard.”

“Maybe I should volunteer to teach it.”

“And work with our girls? You’d be safer going back to Gaza and chasing Hamas terrorists.”

Gabriel leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

“You sure you’re all right, Gabriel?”

“Just a touch of Lubyanka hangover.”

“Who could blame you?” Mikhail was silent for a moment. “The KGB kept my father there for six months when I was a kid. Did I ever tell you that?”

He hadn’t, but Gabriel had read Mikhail’s personnel file.

“After six months in Lubyanka, they declared my father mentally ill and sent him away to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. It was all a sham, of course. No one ever got better in a Soviet psychiatric hospital-the hospitals were just another arm of the gulag. My father was lucky, though. Eventually, he got out, and we were able to come to Israel. But he was never the same after being locked away in that asylum.”

Just then the cabin shuddered with the impact of a hard landing. From the depths of economy class arose a desultory patter of applause. It was a tradition for flights landing in Israel, and, for the first time, Gabriel was tempted to join in. Instead, he sat silently while the plane taxied toward the terminal and, unlike the rest of his fellow countrymen, waited until the SEAT BELT sign was extinguished before rising to his feet and collecting his bag from the overhead bin.

Chiara was now standing at the cabin door. She anonymously bade Gabriel a pleasant evening and warned him to watch his step as he followed Mikhail and the two other security agents down the stairs of the Jetway. Upon reaching the tarmac, Mikhail and the others turned to the right and filed into the motorized lounges, along with the rest of the passengers. Gabriel headed in the opposite direction, toward the waiting Peugeot limousine, and climbed into the backseat. Shamron examined the dark reddish blue bruise along Gabriel’s cheek.

“I suppose you don’t look too bad for someone who survived Lubyanka. How was it?”

“The rooms were on the small side, but the furnishings were quite lovely.”

“Perhaps it would have been better if you’d found some other way of dealing with those Chechens besides killing them.”

“I considered shooting the guns out of their hands, Ari, but that sort of thing really only works in the movies.”