Moscow Rules

“Then you have nothing to worry about. You’ll tell Ivan that you’ve suspected he was being unfaithful for years. You’ll tell him you’ve had suspicions about Yekatarina for a long time and that these suspicions were confirmed by the numbers you found on his mobile phone. You’ll tell him I made a pass at you the afternoon we came to the villa. That you were so angry and hurt that you were unable to resist. You’ll tell him you wanted to punish him and that the only way was to give your body to another man. He’s going to be furious, of course, but he’ll have no reason to doubt the veracity of your story since he knows he is guilty of the sins you accuse him of committing. Sleeping with me was a crime of passion and anger, something Ivan understands all too well. In due time, he’ll forgive you.”

“He might forgive me but not you.”

“I’m none of your concern. In fact, you will soon hate me for the trouble I’ve caused you. As far as you’re concerned, I can look after myself.”

“Can you?”

“Quite well, actually.” He opened the door. “Time to go inside, Elena. There’s someone inside who’s very anxious to meet you.”

It was the antithesis of Villa Soleil, a small, tidy space of whitewashed walls, terra-cotta floors, and rustic Provencal furniture. Seated at a rough-hewn wood table was a man of indeterminate age and nationality, with a long nose that looked as though it had been carved with a chisel and the greenest eyes Elena had ever seen. He rose slowly to his feet as she approached and extended his hand without speaking. Mikhail handled the introductions.

“Meet the man who painted your Cassatt, Elena. I am about to commit the grave professional sin of telling you his real name, which is Gabriel Allon. He wants you to know it, because he admires you deeply and does not wish to lie to you. You are in the presence of royalty, Elena-at least as far as the inhabitants of our world are concerned. I’ll leave you to your business.”

Mikhail withdrew. Gabriel looked at Elena in silence for a moment, then, with a glance, invited her to sit. He retook his seat on the opposite side of the table and folded his hands before him. They were dark and smooth, with slender, articulate fingers. The hands of a musician, thought Elena. The hands of an artist.

“I would like to begin by thanking you,” he said.

“For what?”

“For having the courage to come forward.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re here because of you, Elena. We’re here because you summoned us.”

“But I didn’t summon you. I didn’t summon anyone.”

“Of course you did. You summoned us with Olga Sukhova. And with Aleksandr Lubin. And with Boris Ostrovsky. Whether you realized it or not, Elena, you sent them to us. But you only gave them a part of the story. Now you have to tell us the rest.”

There was something in his accent she could not quite place. He was a polyglot, she decided. A man without roots. A man who had lived many places. A man with many names.

“Who do you work for?”

“I am employed by a small agency answerable only to the prime minister of the State of Israel. But there are other countries involved as well. Your husband’s actions have caused an international crisis. And the response to this crisis has been international as well.”

“Is Sarah an Israeli, too?”

“Only in spirit. Sarah is an American. She works for the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“And Mikhail?”

“As you can probably tell by Mikhail’s perfect Russian, he was born in Moscow. He left when he was a young boy and moved to Israel. He left Russia because of men like your husband. And now your husband is planning to sell very dangerous weapons to people who are sworn to destroy us.’

“How much do you know?”

“Very little, unfortunately. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have upended your life by bringing you here today. We only know that your husband has entered into a deal with the Devil. He’s killed two people to keep that deal a secret. And others will surely die as well, unless you help us.” He reached out and took her by the hand. “Will you help us, Elena?”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to finish what you started when you arranged to meet with your old friend Olga Sukhova. I want you to tell me the rest of the story.”

Five miles due east of Saint-Tropez, the rocky headland known as the Pointe de l’Ay juts defiantly into the Mediterranean Sea. At the base of the point lies a small beach of fine sand, often overlooked because it is absent any boutiques, clubs, or restaurants. The girl with shoulder-length dark hair and scars on her leg had taken great care in choosing her spot, selecting an isolated patch of sand near the rocks with an unobstructed view out to sea. There, shielded from the sun by a parasol, she had passed a pleasant if solitary afternoon, now sipping from a plastic bottle of mineral water, now delving into the pages of a worn paperback novel, now peering out to sea through a pair of miniature Zeiss binoculars toward the enormous private motor yacht called October adrift on the calm waters some three miles offshore.

At 3:15, she noticed something in the ship’s movements that made her sit up a bit straighter. She watched it another moment to make certain her initial impression was correct, then lowered the glasses and removed a BlackBerry PDA from her canvas beach bag. The message was brief; the transmission, lightning fast. Two minutes later, after complying with a request for confirmation, she placed the device back into her beach bag and peered out to sea again. The yacht had completed its turn and was now making for Saint-Tropez like a frigate steaming toward battle. Party’s over a bit early, the girl thought as she traded the glasses for her paperback novel. And on such a lovely day.

44 THE MASSIF DES MAURES, FRANCE

Elena began by setting the scene, as much for her own benefit as for his. It was autumn, she said. November. Mid-November, she added for the sake of clarity. She and Ivan were staying at their country dacha north of Moscow, a palace of pine and glass built atop the remains of a smaller dacha that had been given to Ivan’s father by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. It was snowing heavily. A good Russian snow, like falling ash from a volcanic eruption.

“Ivan received a phone call late in the evening. After hanging up, he told me some business associates would be coming to the house in a few hours for an important meeting. He didn’t identify these business associates and I knew far better than to ask. For the rest of the evening, he was on edge. Anxious. Pacing. Cursing the Russian weather. I knew the signs. I’d seen my husband in moods like this before. Ivan always gets very excited before a big dance.”

“Dance?”

“Forgive me, Mr. Allon. Dance is one of the code words he and his men use when discussing arms transactions. ‘We have to make final arrangements for the dance.’ ‘We have to book a hall for the dance.’ ‘We have to hire a band for the dance.’ ‘How many chairs will we need for the dance?’ ‘How many bottles of vodka?’ ‘How much caviar?’ ‘How many loaves of black bread?’ I’m not sure who they think they’re deceiving with this nonsense but it certainly isn’t me.”

“And did Ivan’s visitors actually come that evening?”

“Technically, it was the next morning. Two-thirty in the morning, to be exact.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes, I saw them.”

“Describe the scene for me. Carefully, Elena. The smallest details can be important.”

“There were eight of them in all, plus a team of Ivan’s bodyguards. Arkady Medvedev was there as well. Arkady is the chief of my husband’s personal security service. The bodyguards have a joke about Arkady. They say