“We’re going to Ukraine. And Ukraine is to the right. Look at the sign.”
“We have a couple of errands to run before we leave.”
“Where?”
Gabriel pointed to the left.
68 MOSCOW
On the outskirts of Moscow was a supermarket that never closed. If it was not the world’s largest supermarket, thought Gabriel, then it was surely a close second: two acres of frozen foods, a mile of cookies and crackers, another mile of American soft drinks, one nightmarish wall hung with thousands of pork sausages. And that was just the food. At the far end of the market was a section called Home and Garden, where one could buy everything from clothing to motorcycles to lawn tractors.
Why the market remained open all night was a mystery because at 2 A.M. it was deserted. They walked the endless prospekts of consumer goods, quickly pulling items from the shelves: clean clothing, bandages and antiseptic, a pair of large sunglasses, enough snack food and cola to fuel an early-morning road trip. When they wheeled their cart up to the checkout stand, the drowsy female clerk looked at Gabriel’s eye and winced. Elena contemptuously explained that her “husband” had crashed his car in a ditch-drunk out of his mind on vodka, of course. The checkout woman shook her head sadly as she rang up the items. “Russian men,” she muttered. “They never change.”
Gabriel carried the bags out to the car and climbed into the back again with Elena. Bulganov, alone in the front, told them a story as he drove toward central Moscow. It was the story of a young KGB officer who never truly believed the lies of Lenin and Stalin and who had quietly raised a glass of vodka when the empire of deception finally fell. This young officer had tried to resign after the collapse of communism but had been convinced by his mentor to stay on and help turn the KGB into a truly professional service. He had reluctantly agreed and had quickly risen through the ranks of the KGB’s domestic successor, the FSB, only to see it deteriorate into something worse than the KGB had been. This young man, at great personal risk, had then joined forces with a group of officers who hoped to reform the FSB.
“Our dossier does not paint a pretty picture. FSB involvement in murder for hire, prostitution, and narcotics. FSB involvement in the operations of shady oligarchs. And
“How did I end up on your plate that night in Lubyanka?”
“Ironically, it was all by the book. We were watching you from the moment you hit the ground in St. Petersburg. And I must admit, you were quite good. We had no suspicions, even
“So you didn’t know Arkady and Ivan were going to have us killed that night?”
“No, not at all. At first, I thought you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when you survived the attack and saved Olga, that caused Ivan a serious problem. I almost lost you during your detention in Lubyanka. Ivan Kharkov himself was on the phone to the chief. He knew your real name and your real job. He wanted you taken out into a field and shot. The top floor ordered me to do just that. I pretended to go along and started stalling for time. Then, thankfully, your service made such a stink, you became too hot, even for the likes of Ivan Kharkov.”
“How did you convince them not to kill me?”
“I told them that it would be a public-relations disaster if you died in FSB custody. I told them I didn’t care what Ivan did to you once you left the country, but they couldn’t lay a hand on you while you were on Russian soil. Ivan wasn’t happy, but the top floor finally came around to my way of thinking. I put you in the van and got you to the border before they could change their minds. You came very close to dying that night, Allon-closer than you’ll ever realize.”
“Where’s the dossier now?”
“Most of it’s up here,” he said, tapping the side of his forehead. “Whatever documentation we could copy was scanned and stored in e-mail accounts outside the country.”
“How did you end up in that warehouse tonight?”
“I’ve been plying my trade on both sides of the street.”
“You’re on Ivan’s payroll?”
Bulganov nodded. “It made it much easier to gather information about the FSB’s shady dealings if I actually took part in some myself. It also gave me protection. The real rotten elements thought I was one of them. I know a great deal about Ivan’s operation. Who knows? Maybe we know enough together to track down those missiles-
“I’m not leaving Russia without Ivan’s disks.”
“You don’t know if there’s anything on them. You also don’t know if they’re even still in the apartment.”
Elena intervened. “I saw Arkady put my handbag in the vault before we left.”
“That was a long time ago. Ivan could have ordered someone to move them.”
“He couldn’t have. Only three people in the world can access that vault: Ivan, Arkady, and me. Logically, the disks have to be there.”
“But getting them is going to cost valuable time. It also might mean another dead body. There’s going to be a new guard in the apartment. He might even have a helper or two. In the old days, the neighbors were used to the sound of a little late-night gunfire, but not now. If we have to do any shooting, it could get ugly quickly.”
“You’re still a colonel in the FSB, Grigori. And FSB colonels take shit from no one.”
“I don’t want to be an FSB colonel anymore. I want to be one of the good guys.”
“You will be,” Gabriel said. “The moment you present yourself at the Ukrainian border and declare your desire to defect.”
Bulganov lowered his eyes from the mirror and stared straight down the Leninsky Prospekt. “I already am a good guy,” he said quietly. “I just play for a very bad team.”
69 BOLOTNAYA SQUARE, MOSCOW
The Russian president frowned in disapproval as Gabriel, Elena, and Grigori Bulganov hurried across the street toward the House on the Embankment. Bulganov placed his FSB identification on the reception desk and quietly threatened to cut off the porter’s hand if he touched the telephone.
“We were never here. Do you understand me?”
The terrified porter nodded. Bulganov returned his ID to his coat pocket and walked over to the private elevator, where Gabriel and Elena had already boarded a car. As the doors closed, the two men drew their Makarovs and chambered their first rounds.
The elevator was old and slow; the journey to the ninth floor seemed to last an eternity. When the doors finally opened, Elena was pressed into one corner, with Gabriel and Bulganov, guns leveled in firing positions, shielding her body. Their precaution proved unnecessary, however, because the vestibule, like the entrance hall of the apartment, was empty. It seemed Arkady Medvedev’s highly trained security guard had fallen asleep on the
