by Daniel Silva
“Which means she’s probably under full-time FSB surveillance. And as a visiting Israeli diplomat, I will be, too.”
The Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, had assumed most of the internal security functions that were once the province of the KGB, including counterintelligence. Though the FSB liked to present itself to the outside world as a modern European security service, it was staffed largely by KGB veterans and even operated from the KGB’s notorious old headquarters in Lubyanka Square. Many Russians didn’t even bother calling it by its new name. To them, it was still the KGB.
“Obviously,” said Navot, “we’ll have to be a bit creative.”
“How creative?” Gabriel asked warily.
“Nothing more dangerous than a dinner party. Our ambassador has agreed to host a small affair at the official residence while you’re in town. The guest list is being drawn up as we speak. It will be an interesting mix of Russian journalists, artists, and opposition figures. Obviously, the ambassador will do his utmost to make certain Olga Sukhova is in attendance.”
“What makes you think she’ll come? Dinner at the home of the Israeli ambassador is hardly a coveted invitation, even in Moscow.”
“Unless it comes attached with a promise of an exclusive scoop of some sort. Then it will be irresistible.”
“What sort of exclusive?”
“Let us worry about that.”
“And if she comes?”
“Then you will pull her aside for a private conversation within the secure environment of the residence. And you will reveal yourself to her in whatever manner, and in whatever detail, you deem appropriate. And you will prevail upon her to share anything she knows about why Boris Ostrovsky went to Rome to see you.”
“What if she doesn’t know anything? Or she’s too afraid to talk?”
“Then I suppose you’ll have to be charming, which, as we all know, comes quite naturally to you. Besides, Gabriel, there are worse ways to spend an evening.”
Navot reached back into his attaché case and withdrew a file. Gabriel opened the cover and removed Olga Sukhova’s photograph. She was an attractive woman in her mid-forties, with sleek Slavic features, ice-blue eyes, and satiny blond hair swept over one shoulder. He closed the file and looked at Shamron, who was standing before a pair of open French doors, twirling his old Zippo lighter between his fingertips. Talk of an operation was clearly testing his newfound commitment not to smoke.
“You’ll go to Moscow, Gabriel. You’ll have a nice evening with Olga at the embassy, and, at the very least, you’ll pick up whatever information you can about why the journalists at the Gazeta are being targeted. Then you can go back to your farm in Umbria—back to your wife and your painting.”
“And what happens if the FSB doesn’t fall for your little ruse?”
“Your diplomatic passport will protect you.”
“The Russian mafia and FSB assassins don’t bother much with diplomatic niceties. They shoot first and worry about the political fallout later.”
“Moscow Station will be watching your back from the moment you land in St. Petersburg,” Navot said. “You’ll never be out of our reach. And if things start to look dicey, we can always arrange for an official security detail for you.”
“What makes you think Moscow Station will ever see it coming, Uzi? A man brushed against Boris Ostrovsky in Rome yesterday afternoon and, before anyone knew what had happened, he was lying dead on the floor of the Basilica.”
“So don’t let anyone touch you. And whatever you do, don’t drink the tea.”
“Sound advice, Uzi.”
“Your protection isn’t your diplomatic passport,” Shamron said. “It’s the reputation of the Office. The Russians know that if anyone lays a finger on you, we’ll declare open season on them and no Russian agent anywhere in the world will ever be safe again.”
“A war against the Russian services is the last thing we need now.”
“They’re selling advanced weaponry to countries and terror groups that wish to exterminate us. We’re already at war with them.” Shamron slipped the lighter into his pocket. “You have a lot to do in six days, including learning how to speak and act like an employee of the Ministry of Culture. The deputy minister is expecting you in his office tomorrow morning at ten. He’ll brief you thoroughly on your other mission in Russia. I want you to behave yourself at that conference, Gabriel. It’s important you do nothing to make our position at the UN any worse than it already is.”
Gabriel stared at the passport photograph and ran a hand absently over his chin. It had been four days since he’d shaved last. He already had a good start on the beard.
“I need to get a message to Chiara. I need to tell her I won’t be coming back to Umbria anytime soon.”
“She already knows,” Shamron said. “If you want, we can bring her here to Jerusalem.”
Gabriel closed the passport and shook his head. “Someone needs to keep an eye on the Poussin. Let her stay in Italy until I get back.”
He looked up and saw Navot gazing dubiously at him through his spindly modern eyeglasses.
“What’s your problem, Uzi?”
“Don’t tell me the great Gabriel Allon is afraid to let his beautiful young wife see him with a gray beard.”
“Thirty pounds,” said Gabriel. “Thirty pounds.”
12
ST. PETERSBURG
Pulkovo 2, St. Petersburg’s aging international airport, had thus far been spared the wrecking ball of progress. The cracked tarmac was dotted with forlorn-looking Soviet-era planes that seemed no longer capable of flight, and the structure itself looked more like a factory complex or prison than a hub of modern air travel. Gabriel entered the terminal under the bleary-eyed gaze of a boy militiaman and was pointed toward passport control by an information hostess who seemed annoyed by his presence. After being formally admitted into Russia with only a slight delay, he made his way to baggage claim, where he waited the statutory hour for his luggage. Lifting the bag from the clattering carousel, he noticed the zipper was halfway open. He extended the handle and made his way to the men’s room, where he was nearly overcome by a cloud of cigarette smoke. Though smoking was strictly forbidden throughout the terminal, Russians apparently did not feel the ban extended to the toilets.
A watcher was standing outside when Gabriel emerged; they walked together to the arrivals hall, where Gabriel was accosted by a large Russian woman wearing a red shirt with UNESCO across her ample breast. She adhered a name tag to his lapel and directed him to a bus waiting outside in the traffic circle. The interior, already crowded with delegates, looked like a miniature version of the General Assembly. Gabriel nodded to a pair of Saudis as he climbed aboard and received only a blank stare in return. He found an unoccupied seat near the rear of the coach, next to a sullen Norwegian who wasted little time before launching into a quiet tirade about Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinians. Gabriel listened patiently to the diplomat’s remarks, then offered a few carefully rendered counterpoints. By the time the bus was rolling up the traffic-choked Moskovsky Prospekt toward the heart of the city, the Norwegian declared he now had a better understanding of the Israeli predicament. They exchanged cards and promised to continue the discussion over dinner the next time Natan Golani was in Oslo.
A Cuban zealot on the other side of the aisle attempted to continue the debate but was mercifully interrupted by the Russian woman in the red UNESCO shirt, who was now standing at the front of the bus, microphone in hand, playing the role of tour guide. Without the slightest trace of irony in her amplified voice, she pointed out the landmarks along the wide boulevard: the soaring statue of Lenin, with his hand extended, as though he were forever attempting to hail a cab; the stirring monuments to the Great Patriotic War; the towering temples of Soviet central planning and control. She ignored the dilapidated office buildings, the Brezhnev-era apartment blocks collapsing under their own weight, and the storefront shops now brimming with consumer goods th
e Soviet state could never provide. These were the relics of the grand folly the Soviets had attempted to foist on the rest of the world. Now, in the minds of the New Russians, the murderous crimes of the Bolsheviks were but a way station on the road to an era of Russian greatness. The gulags, the cruelty, the untold millions who were starved to death or “repressed”—they were only unpleasant details. No one had ever been called to account for his actions. No one was ever punished for his sins.
The prolonged ugliness of the Moskovsky Prospekt finally gave way to the imported European elegance of the city center. First stop was the Astoria Hotel, headquarters of First World delegations. Luggage in hand, Natan Golani filed into the ornate lobby along with his new comrades in culture and joined the lengthy queue at the check-in counter. Though capitalism had taken Russia by storm, the concept of customer service had not. Gabriel stood in line for twenty minutes before finally being processed with Soviet warmth by a flaxen-haired woman who made no attempt to conceal her loathing of him. Refusing an indifferent offer of assistance from a bellman, he carried his own bags to his room. He didn’t bother searching it; he was playing by the Moscow Rules now. Assume every room is bugged and every telephone call monitored. Assume every person you encounter is under opposition control. And don’t look back. You are never completely alone.
And so Natan Golani attached his laptop computer to the complimentary high-speed data port and read his e-mail, knowing full well that the spies of the FSB were reading it, too. And he called his ersatz wife in Tel Aviv and listened dutifully while she complained about her ersatz mother, knowing full well the FSB was enduring the same tedious monologue. And having dispensed with his affairs, both personal and professional, he changed into casual clothing and plunged into the soft Leningrad evening. He dined surprisingly well at an Italian restaurant next door at the Angleterre and later was tailed by two FSB watchers, whom he nicknamed Igor and Natasha, as he strolled the Neva embankment through the endless dusk of the white nights. In Palace Square, he paused to gaze at a wedding party drinking champagne at the foot of the Alexander Column, and for a moment he allowed himselfto think that perhaps it was better to forget the past after all. Then he turned away and started back to the Astoria, with Igor and Natasha trailing silently after him through the midnight sun.
The following morning Natan Golani threw himself into the business of the conference with the determination of a man with much to accomplish in very little time. He was seated at his assigned place in the grand hall of the Marble Palace when the conference commenced and remained there, translation headphones in place, long after many of the other delegates wisely decided that the real business of the gathering was being conducted in the bars of the Western hotels. He did the working lunches and made the rounds of the afternoon cocktail receptions. He did the endless dinners and never once bowed out of the evening entertainment. He spoke French to the French, German to the Germans, Italian to the Italians, and passable Spanish to the many delegations from Latin America. He rubbed shoulders with the Saudis and the Syrians and even managed a polite conversation with an Iranian about the madness of Holocaust denial. He reached an agreement, in principle, for an Israeli chamber orchestra to tour sub-Saharan Africa and arranged for a group of Maori drummers from New Zealand to visit Israel. He could be combative and conciliatory in the span of a few moments. He spoke of new solutions to old problems. He said Israel was determined to build bridges rather than fences. All that was needed, he said to anyone who would listen, was a man of courage on the other side.
He mounted the dais in the grand hall of the Marble Palace at the end of the second day’s session and, as Uzi Navot had forecast, many of the delegates immediately walked out. Those who remained found the speech quite unlike anything they had ever heard from an Israeli representative before. The chief of UNESCO declared it “a clarion call for a new paradigm in the Middle East.” The French delegate referred to Monsieur Golani as “a true man of culture and the arts.” Everyone in attendance agreed that a new wind seemed to be blowing from the Judean Hills.
There was no such wind blowing, however, from the headquarters of the FSB. Their break-in artists searched his hotel room each time he left, and their watchers followed him wherever he went. During the final gala at the Mariinsky Theatre, an attractive female agent flirted shamelessly with him and invited him back to her apartment for an evening of sexual compromise. He politely declined and left the Mariinsky with no company other than Igor and Natasha, who were by now too bored to even bother concealing their presence.
It being his final night in St. Petersburg, he decided to climb the winding steps to the top of St. Isaac’s golden dome. The parapet was empty except for a pair of German girls, who were standing at the balustrade, gazing out at the sweeping view of the city. One of the girls handed him a camera and posed dramatically while he snapped her picture. She then thanked him profusely and told him that Olga Sukhova had agreed to attend the embassy dinner. When he returned to his hotel room, he found the message light winking on his telephone. It was the Israeli ambassador, insisting that he come to Moscow. “You have to see the place to believe it, Natan! Billionaires, dirty bankers, and gangsters, all swimming in a sea of oil, caviar, and vodka! We’re having a dinner party Thursday night—just a few brave souls who’ve had the chutzpah to challenge the regime. And don’t think about trying to say no, because I’ve already arranged it with your minister.”
He erased the message, then dialed Tel Aviv and informed his ersatz wife that he would be staying in Russia longer than expected. She berated him for several minutes, then slammed down the phone in disgust. Gabriel held the receiver to his ear a moment longer and imagined the FSB listeners having a good laugh at his expense.
13
MOSCOW
On Moscow’s Tverskaya Street, the flashy foreign cars of the newly rich jockeyed for position with the boxy Ladas and Zhigulis of the still deprived. The Kremlin’s Trinity Tower was nearly lost in a gauzy shroud of exhaust fumes, its famous red star looking sadly like just another advertisement for an imported luxury good. In the bar of the Savoy Hotel, the sharp boys and their bodyguards were drinking cold beer instead of vodka. Their black Bentleys and Range Rovers waited just outside the entrance, engines running for a quick getaway. Conservation of fuel was hardly a priority in Russia these days. Petrol, like nearly everything else, was in plentiful supply.
At 7:30 P.M., Gabriel came down to the lobby dressed in a dark suit and diplomatic silver tie. Stepping from the entrance, he scanned the faces behind the wheels of the parked cars before heading down the hill to the Teatralnyy Prospekt. Atop a low hill loomed the hulking yellow fortress of Lubyanka, headquarters of the FSB. In its shadow was a row of exclusive Western designer boutiques worthy of Rodeo Drive or Madison Avenue. Gabriel could not help but marvel at the striking juxtaposition, even if it was only a bit of pantomime for the pair of watchers who had left the comfort of their air-conditioned car and were now trailing him on foot.
He consulted a hotel street map—needlessly, because his route was well planned in advance—and made his way to a large open-air esplanade at the foot of the Kremlin walls. Passing a row of kiosks selling everything from Soviet hockey jerseys to busts of the murderers Lenin and Stalin, he turned to the left and entered Red Square. The last of the day’s pilgrims stood outside the entrance of Lenin’s Tomb, sipping Coca-Cola and fanning themselves with tourist brochures and guides to Moscow nightlife. He wondered what drew them here. Was it misplaced faith? Nostalgia for a simpler time? Or did they come merely for morbid reasons? To judge for themselves whether the figure beneath the glass was real or more worthy of a wax museum?
He crossed the square toward the candy-cane domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, then followed the eastern wall of the Kremlin down to the Moscow River. On the opposite bank, at Serafimovicha Street 2, stood the infamous House on the Embankment, the colossal apartment block built by Stalin in 1931 as an exclusive residence for the most elite members of the nom
enklatura. During the height of the Great Terror, 766 residents, or one-third of its total population, had been murdered, and those “privileged” enough to reside in the house lived in constant fear of the knock at the door. Despite its bloody history, many of the old Soviet elite and their children still lived in the building, and flats now sold for millions of dollars. Little of the exterior had changed except for the roof, which was now crowned by a Stalin-sized revolving advertisement for Mercedes-Benz. The Nazis may have failed in their bid to capture Moscow, but now, sixty years after the war, the flag of German industrial might flew proudly from one of the city’s most prestigious landmarks.
