Moscow Rules (41 page)

futile attempts, he looked at Boisson in frustration.

“I sometimes have trouble in this part of the building myself,” the Frenchman said apologetically. He

pointed toward the telephone at the opposite end of the conference table. “Feel free to use ours. I’m sure

it’s working just fine.”

Arkady Medvedev received the call from an obviously dazed Anton Ulyanov while he was relaxing

in the study of his apartment in the Sparrow Hills. After hanging up, he immediately dialed the number for

Elena’s driver and received no answer. After a second unsuccessful attempt, he twice tried to reach Luka

Osipov, the head of Elena’s small security detail, but with the same result. He slammed down the receiver

in frustration and stared glumly out the window toward central Moscow.
A summons to appear at Nice

airport… a crash on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt… and now Elena’s bodyguards weren’t answering their

phones…
It wasn’t a coincidence. Something was going on. But for the moment, there wasn’t a damn thing

he could do about it.

The departure of the Kharkov children from Pampelonne Beach did not go according to schedule,

which surely would come as no surprise to any parent of small children. First there were the demands for

a final swim. Then there was the struggle to get two sand-covered seven-year-olds into dry clothing

suitable for the journey home. And finally there were the obligatory histrionics during the long walk to the

cars. For Sonia Cherkasov, the Kharkov ’s long-suffering nanny, the task was not made any easier by the

fact that she was accompanied by four armed bodyguards. Experience had taught her that, at times like

these, the bodyguards were usually more trouble than the children themselves.

As a result of the delays, it was 1:45 P.M. before the Kharkov party had boarded their cars. They

followed their usual course: inland on the Route des Tamaris, then south along the D93 toward the Baie

de Cavalaire. As they emerged from the traffic circle east of Ramatuelle, a gendarme stepped suddenly

into the roadway ahead of them and raised a white-gloved hand. The driver of the lead car briefly

considered ignoring the command, but when the gendarme gave two fierce blasts on his whistle, the driver

thought better of it and pulled onto the shoulder, followed by the second car.

The gendarme, a veteran of the Saint-Tropez post, knew it was pointless to address the Russian in

French. In heavily accented English, he informed the driver that he had been traveling well in excess of

the posted speed limit. The driver’s response-that everyone speeds in the South of France in summer-did

not sit well with the gendarme, who immediately demanded to see the driver’s operating permit, along

with the passports of every occupant of the two vehicles.

“We didn’t bring the passports.”

“Why not?”

“Because we were at the beach.”

“As visitors to France, you are required to carry your passports with you at all times.”

“Why don’t you follow us home? We can show you our passports and be done with this nonsense.”

The gendarme peered into the backseat.

“Are these your children, Monsieur?”

“No, they are the children of Ivan Kharkov.”

The gendarme made a face to indicate the name was not familiar to him.

“And who are you?”

“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 of Stalin. My neighbor claims to have seen him wandering the halls at night. I’ve never had the

misfortune of meeting him.”

The elevator doors opened; the tubby Russian disappeared inside. Luka Osipov walked over to the

lobby windows and gazed into the street. At least two other people-a woman walking along the sidewalk

and a taxi driver standing next to his car-were having obvious difficulty with their cell phones.
The damn

thing was working a minute ago, but when I got near the building it stopped
… Though Comrade Stalin

was a man of great power, Luka Osipov doubted whether his ghost had anything to do with the sudden

interruption in cellular communications. He suspected it was something far more tangible. Something like

a signal jammer.

He tried his mobile one more time without success, then walked over to the porter’s desk and asked

to use his landline telephone. After ascertaining that Osipov intended to make a local call, the porter

turned the instrument around and told the bodyguard to make it quick. The admonition was unnecessary.

The phone wasn’t working.

“It’s dead,” Osipov said.

“It was working a minute ago.”

“Have you received any complaints from anyone in the building about trouble with their phones?”

“No, nothing.”

Luka left the porter’s desk and stepped outside. By the time he reached the limousine, the driver had

his window down. Luka poked his head through the opening and told the man in the passenger seat to go

inside and stand guard in the foyer. Then he turned toward the Kremlin and started walking. By the time he

reached the middle of the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge, his phone was working again. The first call he made

was to the Sparrow Hills.

58 MOSCOW

The floor was hardwood and recently polished. Even so, it took every bit of Elena’s strength to drag

the two-hundred-pound unconscious body of Pyotr Luzhkov into the bathroom of the master bedroom

suite. She locked the door from the inside, then made her way back to the entrance of Ivan’s office. The