“I think I know where that information might be,” she said.
Gabriel looked at her. “Where, Elena?”
“In Moscow.”
“Is it somewhere we can get to it?”
“Not you. I would have to do it for you. And I would have to do it alone.”
My husband is a devout Stalinist. It is not something he generally acknowledges, even in Russia.”
Elena drank a bit of the rose, then held it up to the fading sunlight to examine the color.
“His love of Stalin has influenced his real estate purchases. Zhukovka, the area where we now live outside Moscow, was actually a restricted dacha village once, reserved for only the most senior Party officials and a few special scientists and musicians. Ivan’s father was never senior enough in rank to earn a dacha in Zhukovka, and Ivan was always deeply resentful of this. After the fall of the Soviet Union, when it became possible for anyone with enough money to acquire property there, he bought a plot of land that had been owned by Stalin’s daughter. He also bought a large apartment in the House on the Embankment. He uses it as a pied-a-terre and keeps a private office there. I also assume he uses it as a place to take his lovers. I’ve been only a few times. It’s filled with ghosts, that building. The residents say that if you listen carefully at night, you can still hear the screaming.”
She looked at Gabriel for a moment in silence.
“Do you know the building I’m talking about, Mr. Allon? The House on the Embankment?”
“The big building on Serafimovicha Street with the Mercedes-Benz star on top. It was built for the most senior members of the
“You’ve obviously done your homework.” She peered into the wineglass. “Stalin murdered nearly eight hundred residents of that building, including the man who lived in my husband’s apartment. He was a senior official in the Foreign Ministry. Stalin’s henchmen suspected him of being a spy for the Germans, and for that he was taken to the killing fields of Butovo and shot. No one really knows how many of Stalin’s victims are buried out there. A few years ago, the government turned the property over to the Orthodox Church, and they’ve been carefully searching for the remains ever since. There is no sadder place in Russia than Butovo, Mr. Allon. Widows and orphans filing past the trenches, wondering where their husbands and fathers might lie. We mourn Stalin’s victims in Butovo while men like my husband pay millions for their flats in the House on the Embankment. Only in Russia.”
“Where’s the flat?”
“On the ninth floor, overlooking the Kremlin. He and Arkady keep a guard on duty there twenty-four hours a day. The doors to Ivan’s office have a wood veneer, but underneath they’re bombproof steel. There’s a keypad entrance with a biometric fingerprint scanner. Only three people have the code and fingerprint clearance: Ivan, Arkady, and me. Inside the office is a password-protected computer. There’s also another vault, same keypad and biometric scanner, same password and procedure. All my husband’s secrets are in that vault. They’re stored on disks with KGB encryption software.”
“Are you allowed to enter his office?”
“Under normal circumstances, only when I’m with Ivan. But, in an emergency, I can enter alone.”
“What kind of an emergency?”
“The kind that could happen if Ivan ever fell out of favor with the men who sit across the river in the Kremlin. Under such a scenario, he always assumed that he and Arkady would be arrested together. It would then be up to me, he said, to make certain the files hidden in that vault never fell into the wrong hands.”
“Are you supposed to remove them?”
She shook her head. “The interior of the vault is lined with explosives. Ivan showed me where the detonator button was hidden and taught me how to arm and fire it. He assured me the explosives had been carefully calibrated: just enough to destroy the contents of the safe without causing any other damage.”
“What’s the password?”
“He uses the numeric version of Stalin’s birthday: December 21, 1879. But the password alone is useless. You need my thumb as well. And don’t think about trying to create something that will fool the scanner. The guard will never open the door to someone he doesn’t recognize. I’m the only one who can get inside that apartment, and I’m the only one who can get inside the vault.”
Gabriel stood and walked to the low stone parapet at the edge of the terrace. “There’s no way for you to take those disks without Ivan’s finding out. And if he does, he’ll kill you-just the way he killed Aleksandr Lubin and Boris Ostrovsky.”
“He won’t be able to kill me if he can’t find me. And he won’t be able to find me if you and your friends do a good job of hiding me away.” She paused for a moment to allow her words to have their full impact. “And the children, of course. You would have to think of some way to get my children away from Ivan.”
Gabriel turned slowly around. “Do you understand what you’re saying?”
“I believe that during the Cold War we referred to such operations as defections.”
“Your life as you know it will be over, Elena. You’ll lose the houses. You’ll lose the money. You’ll lose your Cassatts. No more winters in Courchevel. No more summers in Saint-Tropez. No more endless shopping excursions in Knightsbridge. You’ll never be able to set foot in Russia again. And you’ll spend the rest of your life hiding from Ivan. Think carefully, Elena. Are you really willing to give up everything in order to help us?”’
“What am I giving up, exactly? I’m married to a man who has sold a cache of missiles to al-Qaeda and has killed two journalists in order to keep it a secret. A man who holds me in such contempt that he thinks nothing of bringing his mistress into my home. My life is a lie. All I have are my children. I’ll get you those disks and defect to the West. All you have to do is get my children away from Ivan. Just promise me that nothing will happen to them.”
She reached out and took hold of his wrist. His skin was ablaze, as though he were suffering from a fever.
“Surely a man who can forge a painting by Mary Cassatt, or arrange a meeting like this, can think of some way of getting my children away from their father.”
“You were able to see through my forgery.”
“That’s because I’m good.”
“You’ll have to be more than good to fool Ivan. You’ll have to be perfect. And if you’re not, you could end up dead.”
“I’m a Leningrad girl. I grew up in a Party family. I know how to beat them at their own game. I know the rules.” She squeezed his wrist and looked directly into his eyes. “You just have to think of some way to get me back to Moscow that won’t make Ivan suspicious.”
“And then we have to get you out again.
“That, too.”
He added more wine to her glass and sat down next to her.
“I hear your mother hasn’t been well.”
“How did you hear that?”
“Because we’ve been listening to your telephone conversations.
“She had a dizzy spell last week. She’s been begging me to come to see her.”
“Perhaps you should. After all, it seems to me a woman in your position might actually want to spend some time with your mother, given everything your husband has put you through.”
“Yes, I think I might.”
“Can your mother be trusted?”
“She absolutely loathes Ivan. Nothing would make her happier than for me to leave him.”
“She’s in Moscow now?”
Elena nodded. “We brought her there after my father died. Ivan bought her a lovely apartment in a new building on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt, which she resents terribly.”
Gabriel placed a hand thoughtfully against his chin and tilted his head slightly to one side.
“I’m going to need a letter. It will have to be in your own hand. It will also have to contain enough personal information about you and your family to let your mother know for certain that you wrote it.”
“And then?”
