Moscow Rules

“I work for Mr. Kharkov. So do my colleagues in the second car.”

“In what capacity?”

“Security.”

“Am I to assume that you are carrying weapons?”

The Russian driver nodded his head.

“May I see your permits, please?”

“We don’t have the permits with us. They’re with the passports at Mr. Kharkov’s villa.”

“And where is this villa?”

The gendarme, upon hearing the answer, walked back to his car and lifted his radio to his lips. A second vehicle, a Renault minivan, had already arrived on the scene and shortly thereafter was joined by what appeared to be most of the Saint-Tropez force. The Russian driver, watching this scene in his rearview mirror, sensed the situation was deteriorating rapidly. He drew a mobile phone from his pocket and tried to call the chief of Ivan’s detail, but the call failed to go through. After three more attempts, he gave up in frustration and looked out the window. The gendarme was now standing there, with the flap of his holster undone and his hand wrapped around the grip of his sidearm.

“Where is your weapon, Monsieur?”

The driver reached down and silently patted his hip.

“Please remove it and place it carefully on the dash of the car.” He looked at the bodyguard in the passenger seat. “You, too, Monsieur. Gun on the dash. Then I’d like you both to step out of the car very slowly and place your hands on the roof.”

“What is this all about?”

“I’m afraid we have no choice but to detain you until we can sort out the matter of your passports and weapons permits. The children and their nanny can travel together in one car. You and your three colleagues will be driven separately. We can do this in a civilized manner or, if you prefer, we can do it in handcuffs. The choice is yours, Messieurs.”

57 MOSCOW

On the western side of the House on the Embankment was a small park with a pretty red church in the center. It was not popular under normal circumstances, and now, with the clouds low and heavy with rain, it was largely deserted. A few yards from the church was a coppice of trees, and amid the trees was a bench with much Russian obscenity carved into its wood. Gabriel sat at one end; Shmuel Peled, embassy driver and clandestine officer of Israeli intelligence, sat at the other. Shmuel was chattering away in fluent Russian. Gabriel was not listening. He was focused instead on the voices emanating from his miniature earpiece. The voice of Yaakov Rossman, who reported that Elena Kharkov’s car was now free of opposition surveillance. The voice of Eli Lavon, who reported that Elena Kharkov’s car was now approaching the House on the Embankment at high speed. The voice of Uzi Navot, who reported that Elena Kharkov was now leaving her car and proceeding into the building with Luka Osipov at her shoulder. Gabriel marked the time on his wristwatch: 3:54… They were already nine minutes behind schedule.

Better hurry, Elena. We all have a plane to catch.

Word of Elena Kharkov’s arrival reached London ten seconds later, not by voice but by a terse message that flashed across the billboard-sized video screen at the front of the room. Adrian Carter had been anxiously awaiting the alert and had the handset of a dedicated line to Langley pressed tightly to his ear. “She’s heading into the building,” he said calmly. “Take down the phones. Everything from the Moscow River south to the Garden Ring.”

She crossed the lobby with Luka Osipov at her heels and entered a small foyer with a single elevator. He attempted to follow her into the waiting car but she froze him with a wave of her hand. “Wait here,” she ordered, inserting a security keycard into the slot. She removed the card and pressed the button for the ninth floor. Luka Osipov stood motionless for several seconds, watching the elevator’s ascent play out on the red lights of the control panel. Then he opened his mobile and tried to call the driver outside. Hearing nothing, he snapped the phone shut and swore softly. The whole Moscow network must have crashed, he thought. We Russians can’t do anything right.

When the doors opened on the ninth floor, another bodyguard was waiting in the vestibule. His name was Pyotr Luzhkov and, like Luka Osipov, he was a former member of the elite Alpha Group. The expression on his pasty, dull face was one of surprise. Because of the cell phone jammer concealed in Elena’s luggage, her security detail had been unable to alert him that she would be stopping by. Elena greeted him absently, then pushed past him into the entrance hall without offering any explanation for her presence. When the securityman reflexively placed his hand on her arm, Elena whirled around, eyes wide with anger.

“What are you doing? How dare you touch me! Who do you think you are?”

Luzhkov removed his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry what?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kharkov. I shouldn’t have placed my hand on you.”

“No, Pyotr, you should not have placed your hand on me. Wait until Ivan finds out about this!”

She set out down the hallway toward the office. The bodyguard followed.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kharkov, but I’m afraid I can’t allow you to enter the office unless your husband is with you.”

“Except in the event of an emergency.”

“That’s correct.”

“And I’m telling you this is an emergency. Go back to your post, you fool. I can’t punch in the code with you looking over my shoulder.”

“If there is an emergency, Mrs. Kharkov, why wasn’t I notified by Arkady Medvedev?”

“You might find this difficult to believe, Pyotr, but my husband does not tell Arkady everything. He asked me to collect some important papers from his office and bring them to France. Now, ask yourself something, Pyotr: How do you think Ivan is going to react if I miss my plane because of this?”

The bodyguard held his ground. “I’m just doing my job, Mrs. Kharkov. And my instructions are very simple. No one is allowed to enter that office without clearance from Mr. Kharkov or Arkady Medvedev. And that includes you.”

Elena looked toward the ceiling and sighed in exasperation. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to call Arkady and tell him that I’m here.” She pointed to the telephone resting on a small decorative table. “Call him, Pyotr. But do it quickly. Because if I miss my flight to France, I’m going to tell Ivan to cut out your tongue.”

The guard turned his back to Elena and snatched up the receiver. A few seconds later, he reached down, brow furrowed, and rattled the switch several times.

“Something wrong, Pyotr?”

“The phone doesn’t seem to be working.”

“That’s odd. Try my cell phone.”

The guard placed the receiver back in the cradle and turned around, only to find Elena with her arm extended and a spray bottle in her hand. The spray bottle that Gabriel had given her on the plane. She squeezed the button once, sending a cloud of atomized liquid directly into his face. The guard struggled for several seconds to maintain his balance and for an instant Elena feared the sedative hadn’t worked. Then he fell to the floor with a heavy thud, toppling the table in the process. Elena stared at him anxiously as he lay sprawled on the floor. Then she sprayed his face a second time.

That’s what you get for touching me, she thought. Swine.

Nine floors beneath her, a fat man in a gray fedora entered the foyer for the private elevators, quietly cursing his mobile phone. He looked at Luka Osipov with an expression of mild frustration and shrugged his lumpy shoulders.

“The damn thing was working a minute ago, but when I got near the building it stopped. Perhaps it’s the ghost