Moscow Rules (17 page)

Sukhova.”

“Just because she trusted Olga Sukhova once doesn’t mean she’ll trust an intelligence service of a

foreign country. And remember, two Russian journalists have lost their lives because of her actions. I

don’t suspect she’s going to be terribly receptive to an approach.”

“She spends the majority of her time in London, Ari. We can get to her.”

“And so can Ivan. She’s surrounded by his security goons night and day. They’re all former members

of the Alpha Group and OMON. All her contacts and communications are probably monitored. What do

you intend to do? Invite her to tea? Call her on her cell phone? Drop her an e-mail?”

“I’m working on that part.”

“Just know Ivan is three steps ahead of you. There’s been a leak from somewhere in his network and

he knows it. His private security service is going to be on high alert. Any approach to his wife is going to

set off alarm bells. One misstep and you could get her killed.”

“So we’ll just have to do it quietly.”

“We?”

“This isn’t something we can do alone, Ari. We need the assistance of the Americans.”

Shamron frowned. As a rule, he didn’t like joint operations and was uncomfortable with Gabriel’s

close ties to the CIA. His generation had lived by a simple axiom known as
kachol lavan
, or “blue and

white.” They did things for themselves and did not rely on others to help them with their problems. It was

an attitude borne from the experience of the Holocaust, when most of the world had stood by silently

while the Jews were fed to the fires. It had bred in men like Shamron a reluctance-indeed, a fear-of

operating with others.

“I seem to remember a conversation we had a few days ago during which you berated me for

interrupting your honeymoon. Now you want to run an open-ended operation against Ivan Kharkov?”

“Let’s just say I have a personal stake in the outcome of the case.”

Shamron sipped his coffee. “Something tells me your new wife isn’t going to be pleased with you.”

“She’s Office. She’ll understand.”

“Just don’t let her anywhere near Ivan,” Shamron said. “Ivan likes to break pretty things.”

22 JERUSALEM

Is this some sort of sick fantasy of yours, Gabriel? Watching a stewardess remove her clothing?”

"I’ve never really been attracted to girls in uniform. And they’re called flight attendants now, Chiara.

A woman in your line of work should know that.”

“You could have at least flirted with me a little bit. All men flirt with flight attendants, don’t they?”

“I didn’t want to blow your cover. You seemed to be having enough trouble as it was.”

“I don’t know how they can wear these uniforms. Help me with my zipper.”

“With pleasure.”

She turned around and pulled aside her hair. Gabriel lowered the zipper and kissed the nape of her

neck.

“Your beard tickles.”

“I’ll shave.”

She turned around and kissed him. “Leave it for now. It makes you look very distinguished.”

“I think it makes me look like Abraham.” He sat on the edge of the bed and watched Chiara wriggle

out of the dress. “This is certainly better than spending another night in Lubyanka.”

“I should hope so.”

“You were supposed to be keeping an eye on the Poussin. Please tell me you didn’t leave it

unguarded.”

“Monsignor Donati took it back to the Vatican.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that. How long do I have before he gives it to one of the butchers

from the Vatican ’s restoration department? ”

“The end of September.” She reached behind her back and loosened the clasp on her brassiere. “Is

there any food in this house? I’m famished. ”

“You didn’t eat anything on the flight?”

“We were too busy. How was Gilah’s chicken?”

“Delicious.”

“It looked a lot better than the food we were serving.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“Was I that bad?”

“Let’s just say the first-class passengers were less than pleased by the level of service. If that flight

had lasted another hour, you would have had an intifada on your hands.”

“They didn’t give us adequate training to accomplish our mission. Besides, Jewish girls shouldn’t be

flight attendants.”

“ Israel is the great equalizer, Chiara. It’s good for Jews to be flight attendants and farmers and

garbagemen.”

“I’ll tell Uzi to keep that in mind the next time he’s handing out field assignments.”

She gathered up her clothing. “I need to take a shower. I smell like bad food and other people’s

cologne.”

“Welcome to the glamorous world of air travel.”

She leaned down and kissed him again. “Maybe you
should
shave after all, Gabriel. I really can’t

make love to a man who looks like Abraham.”

“He fathered Isaac at a very old age.”

“With help from God. I’m afraid you’re on your own tonight.” She touched the bruise on his cheek.

“Did they hurt you?”

“Not really. We spent most of the night playing gin rummy and swapping stories about the good old

days before the Wall came down.”

“You’re upset about something. I can always tell when you’re upset. You make terrible jokes to

cover it up.”

“I’m upset because it appears a Russian arms trafficker named Ivan Kharkov is planning to sell some

very dangerous weapons to al-Qaeda. And because the woman who risked her life to tell us about it is

now in very serious danger.” He hesitated, then added, “And because it’s going to be a while before we

can resume our honeymoon in Umbria.”

“You’re not thinking about going back to Russia?”

“Just Washington.”

She stroked his beard and said, “Have a nice trip, Abraham.”

Then she walked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

She’s Office
, he told himself.
She’ll understand
.

Eventually.

23 GEORGETOWN

The CIA sent a plane for him, a Gulfstream G500, with leather club chairs, in-flight action movies,

and a galley stocked with a vast amount of unwholesome snack food. It touched down at Andrews Air

Force Base in the equatorial heat of midday and was met in a secure hangar by a pair of Agency security

agents. Gabriel recognized them; they were the same two officers who had dragged him against his will to

CIA Headquarters during his last visit to Washington. He feared a return engagement now but was

pleasantly surprised when their destination turned out to be a graceful redbrick town house in the 3300

block of N Street in Georgetown. Waiting in the entrance hall was a man of retirement age, dressed in a

navy blue blazer and crumpled gabardine trousers. He had the tousled thinning hair of a university

professor and a mustache that had gone out of fashion with disco music, Crock-Pots, and the nuclear

freeze. “Gabriel,” said Adrian Carter as he extended his hand. “So good of you to come.”

“You’re looking well, Adrian.”

“And you’re still a terrible liar.” He looked at Gabriel’s face and frowned. “I assume that lovely

bruise on your cheek is a souvenir of your night in Lubyanka?”

“I wanted to bring you something, but the gift shop was closed.”

Carter gave a faint smile and took Gabriel by the elbow. “I thought you might be hungry after your

travels. I’ve arranged for some lunch. How was the flight, by the way?”

“It was very considerate of you to send your plane on such short notice.”

“That one isn’t mine,” Carter said without elaboration.

“Air Guantánamo?”

“And points in between.”

“So that explains the handcuffs and the hypodermics.”

“It beats having to listen to them talk. Your average jihadi makes a damn lousy traveling

companion.”

They entered the living room. It was a formal Georgetown salon, rectangular and high-ceilinged,

with French doors overlooking a small terrace. The furnishings were costly but in poor taste, the sort of

pieces one finds in the hospitality suite of a luxury business hotel. The impression was made complete by

the catered buffet-style meal that had been laid upon the sideboard. All that was missing was a pretty

young hostess to offer Gabriel a glass of mediocre chardonnay.

Carter wandered over to the buffet and selected a ham sandwich and a ginger ale. Gabriel drew a

cup of black coffee from a silver pump-action thermos and sat in a wing chair next to the French doors.

Carter sat down next to him and balanced his plate on his knees.

“Shamron tells me Ivan has been a bad boy again. Give me everything you’ve got. And don’t spare

me any of the details.” He cracked open his soft drink. “I happen to love stories about Ivan. They serve as

helpful reminders that there are some people in this world who will do absolutely anything for money.”

It wasn’t long after Gabriel began his briefing that Carter seemed to lose his appetite. He placed his

partially eaten sandwich on the table next to his chair and sat motionless as a statue, with his legs crossed

and his hands bunched thoughtfully beneath his chin. It had been Gabriel’s experience that any decent spy

was at his core a good listener. It came naturally to Carter, like his gift for languages, his ability to blend

into his surroundings, and his humility. Little about Carter’s clinical demeanor suggested that he was one

of the most powerful members of Washington’s intelligence establishment-or that before his ascension to

the rarified atmosphere of Langley’s seventh floor, where he served as director of the CIA’s national

clandestine service, he had been a field man of the highest reputation. Most mistook him for a therapist of

some sort. When one thought of Adrian Carter, one pictured a man enduring confessions of affairs and

inadequacies, not tales of terrorists and Russian arms dealers.

“I wish I could say your story sounded like the ravings of an angry wife,” Carter said. “But I’m

afraid it dovetails nicely with some rather alarming intelligence we’ve been picking up over the past few

months.”

“What sort of intelligence?”

“Chatter,” said Carter. “More to the point, a specific phrase that has popped several times over the

past few weeks-so many times, in fact, that our analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center are no

longer willing to dismiss it as mere coincidence.”

“What’s the phrase?”

“The arrows of Allah. We’ve seen it about a half-dozen times now, most recently on the computer of

a jihadi who was arrested by our friend Lars Mortensen in Copenhagen. You remember Lars, don’t you,

Gabriel?”

“With considerable fondness,” Gabriel replied.

“Mortensen and his technicians at the Danish PET found the phrase in an old e-mail that the suspect

had tried to delete. The e-mail said something about ‘the arrows of Allah piercing the hearts of the

infidels, ’ or sentiments to that effect.”

“What’s the suspect’s name?”

“Marwan Abbas. He’s a Jordanian now residing in the largely immigrant quarter of Copenhagen

known as Nørrebro-a quarter you know quite well, if I’m not mistaken. Mortensen says Abbas is a

member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the radical Islamist political movement. The Jordanian GID told us he was

also an associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may he rest in peace.”

“If I were you, Adrian, I’d send that Gulfstream of yours to Copenhagen to take possession of

Marwan for a private chat.”

“I’m afraid Mortensen is in no position to play ball with us at the moment. PET and the Danish

government still have bruised feelings over our actions during the Halton affair. I suppose, in hindsight,

we should have signed the guestbook on the way into Denmark. We told the Danes about our presence on

their soil
after
the fact. It’s going to take a while for them to forgive us our sins.”

“Mortensen will come around eventually. The Danes need you. So do the rest of the Europeans. In a

world gone mad, America is still the last best hope.”

“I hope you’re right, Gabriel. It’s become popular in Washington these days to think that the threat of

terrorism has receded-or that we can somehow live with the occasional loss of national monuments and

American life. But when the next attack comes-and I do mean
when
, Gabriel-those same freethinkers will

be the first to fault the Agency for failing to stop it. We can’t do it without the cooperation of the

Europeans. And
you
, of course. You’re our secret servant, aren’t you, Gabriel? You’re the one who does

the jobs we’re unwilling, or unable, to do for ourselves. I’m afraid Ivan falls into that category.”

Gabriel recalled the words Shamron had spoken the previous evening in Jerusalem:
The Americans

love to monitor problems but do nothing about them…

“Ivan’s main stomping ground is Africa,” Carter said. “But he’s made lucrative forays into the

Middle East and Latin America as well. In the good old days, when the Agency and the KGB played the

various factions of the Third World against one another for our own amusement, we were judicious with

the flow of arms. We wanted the killing to remain at morally acceptable levels. But Ivan tore up the old

rule book, and he’s torn up many of the world’s poorest places in the process. He’s willing to provide the