The Defector (37 page)

THE COMBINATION of the concussive blast wave and the deafening thunderclap did most of the heavy lifting for them. All Mikhail and Gabriel had to do was take care of a few loose ends.

Loose end number one was the guard who had peered briefly through the window. Gabriel dispatched him with a quick burst of a Mini-Uzi seconds after entry.

Before the blast, two more guards had been enjoying a quiet breakfast. Now they were sprawled across the floor, separated from their weapons. Gabriel raked them with Uzi fire and stepped into the kitchen, where a fourth guard had been making tea. That one managed to squeeze off a single shot before taking several rounds in the chest.

The right side of the dacha was now secured.

A few feet away, Mikhail was having similar success. After following Gabriel through the blown-out doorway, he had immediately spotted two dazed guards in the dacha’s central hall. Gabriel had crouched instinctively before squeezing off his first shots, thus opening a clean firing line for Mikhail. Mikhail had taken it, sending a sustained burst of gunfire down the hall just a few inches over Gabriel’s head. Then he had immediately pivoted toward the sitting room. One of Ivan’s men had been watching the highlights of a big football match on television when the charge went off. Now he was covered in plaster and dust and searching blindly for his weapon. Mikhail put him down with a shot to the chest.

“Where’s the girl?” he asked the dying man in Russian.

“In the cellar.”

“Good boy.”

Mikhail shot him in the face. Left side of the dacha secured.

They headed to the stairs.

SQUEEZED INTO the corner of the blacked-out cell, Chiara heard three sounds in rapid succession: a padlock snapping open, a dead bolt sliding back, a latch turning. The metal door moved away with a heavy scrape, allowing a trapezoid of weak light to enter the cell and illuminate Grigori. Next came a Makarov 9mm, held by a pair of hands. The hands of the woman who had killed Chiara’s child with sedatives. The gun moved away from Chiara a few degrees and took aim at Grigori. His battered face registered no fear. He was in too much pain to be afraid, too weary to resist death. Chiara resisted for him. Lunging forward out of the gloom, she seized the woman by the wrists and bent them backward. The gun went off; in the tiny concrete chamber, it sounded like cannon fire. Then it went off again. Then a third time. Chiara held on. For Grigori. For her baby.

For Gabriel.

IVAN KHARKOV was a man of many secrets, many lives. No one knew this any better than Yekaterina, his former mistress turned devoted wife. Like Elena before her, she had entered into a foolish pact. In exchange for being granted her every material wish, she would ask no questions. No questions about Ivan’s business. No questions about Ivan’s friends and associates. No questions about why Elena had decided to hand over the children. And now, no questions about why the children had refused to leave the plane. Instead, she attempted to play the role Ivan had given her. She tried to hold his hand, but Ivan refused to be touched. Tried to soothe him with words, but Ivan refused to listen. For the moment, he had eyes only for Oleg Rudenko. The security man was shouting into his cell phone over the thudding of the rotors. Yekaterina heard words she wished she had not. How many men do you have? How many minutes until you arrive? No blood! Do you hear me? No blood until we get there! She summoned the courage to ask where they were going. Ivan told her she would find out soon enough. She told him she wanted to go home. Ivan told her to shut her mouth. She stared out the window of the helicopter. Somewhere down there was her old village. The village where she had lived before being discovered by the woman from the modeling agency. The village filled with drunks and losers. She closed her eyes. Take me home, you monster. Please, take me home.

THE YOUNG aide approached the Russian president with considerable caution. Aides usually did, regardless of their age. The president leaned away from the table and allowed the aide to whisper into his ear, a rare privilege. Then the look again, chin to his chest, eyes like daggers.

“He doesn’t look happy,” the British prime minister said.

“Oh, really? How can you tell?”

“I suppose things didn’t go well at the airport.”

“Wait until he hears the encore.”

THEY HAD hit the stairs on the run and were halfway down when the first gunshot erupted. Mikhail was leading the way, Gabriel a step behind, his view partially obscured. Nearing the bottom, a terrible smell greeted them: the stench of humans confined in a small place for too long. The stench of death. Then another gunshot rang out. And another. And another . . .

Gabriel heard a scream, followed by two distinct female voices shouting in anger. They were distinct because one of the voices was shouting in Russian. And the other was shouting in Italian.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, Gabriel raced after Mikhail, listening to the sound of Chiara’s voice, praying he would not hear another gunshot. Mikhail flung aside the door to the cell and entered first. Propped in one corner was a man, hands and feet shackled, face grotesquely distorted. Chiara was on her back, the Russian woman atop her. They were struggling over a gun and it was now very close to Chiara’s cheek.

Mikhail grabbed the weapon and pointed it toward the wall. As it discharged twice harmlessly, Gabriel seized a fistful of the Russian woman’s hair and pumped a single round through her temple. Now only one woman was screaming. Gabriel hurled the dead woman aside and fell to his knees. Chiara, in her frenzy, briefly mistook him for one of Ivan’s men and recoiled. He held her face in his hands and spoke to her softly in Italian. “It’s me,” he said. “It’s Gabriel. Please, try to be calm. We have to hurry.”

65

GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON

AFTERWARD, there would be a debate as to precisely how long it took Gabriel and Mikhail to perform their assignment. Total time was three minutes and twelve seconds—an impressive feat, made more so by the fact it took well over a minute just to drive the half mile from the first guard post to the dacha itself. From entry to rescue was an astonishing twenty-two seconds. Silence, speed, timing . . . And courage, of course. If Chiara had not decided to stand and fight for her life, both she and Grigori would surely have been dead by the time Gabriel and Mikhail reached the cellar.

Due to the miracle of advanced secure satellite communications, King Saul Boulevard was able to hear Gabriel whispering soothingly to Chiara in Italian. No one on the Operations Desk understood what was being said. It wasn’t necessary. The very fact Gabriel was speaking Italian to a hysterical woman told them everything they needed to know. The first phase of the operation had been a success. Mikhail confirmed it for them at 9:09:12 Moscow time. He also confirmed that Grigori Bulganov, though badly injured, was alive as well.

There arose in Tel Aviv a great roar as days of stress and sadness were released like steam from a valve. The cheering was so loud that ten long seconds elapsed before Shamron understood precisely what had transpired. When he broke the news to Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour, a second cheer erupted in the London annex, followed by a third at the Global Ops Center at Langley. Only Shamron refused to take part. And with good reason. The numbers told him everything he needed to know.

Five agents.

Two weakened hostages.

One thousand yards from the dacha to the road.

One hundred twenty-eight miles to Moscow.

And Ivan in the air.

Shamron twirled his old Zippo lighter between his fingertips and looked at the clock: 9:09:52.

The numbers . . .

Unlike people, numbers never lied. And the numbers didn’t look good.

GABRIEL CUT away the cuffs and shackles and lifted Chiara to her feet.

“Can you walk?”

“Don’t leave me, Gabriel!”

“I’ll never leave you.”

“Stay with me!”

“Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

He wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her up the stairs.

“You have to hurry, Chiara.”

“Don’t leave me, Gabriel.”

“I’ll never leave you.”

“Don’t leave me here with them.”

“Everyone’s gone, my love. But we have to hurry.”

They reached the top of the stairs. Navot was standing in the center hall, bodies at his feet, blood on the walls.

“Grigori’s a mess,” Gabriel snapped in Hebrew. “Bring him up.”

Gabriel helped Chiara around the bodies and headed toward the hole where the door had once been. Chiara saw more bodies. Bodies everywhere. Bodies and blood.

“Oh, God.”

“Don’t look, my love. Just walk.”

“Oh, God.”

“Walk, Chiara. Walk.”

“Did you kill them, Gabriel? Did you do this?”

“Just keep walking, my love.”

NAVOT ENTERED the cell and saw Grigori’s face.

Bastards!

He looked at Mikhail.

“Let’s get him on his feet.”

“He’s in bad shape.”

“I don’t care. Just get him on his feet.”

Grigori screamed in agony as Mikhail and Navot pulled him upright.

“I don’t think I can walk.”

“You don’t have to.”

Navot hoisted the Russian over one shoulder and nodded to Mikhail.

“Let’s go.”

THE BACK DOORS of the Range Rover were now open. Yaakov was standing on one side, Oded on the other. A few feet away were two Russian corpses, arms flung wide, heads surrounded by halos of blood. Gabriel led Chiara past the bodies and lifted her into the back. Then he turned and saw Navot coming out of the dacha, Grigori draped over one shoulder.

“Put him in the back with Chiara and get out of here.”

Navot eased Grigori into the car while Gabriel climbed into the front passenger seat. Mikhail dug the keys from the pocket of his parka and fired the engine. As the Rover shot forward, Gabriel glanced back a final time.

Three men. Running for the trees.

He inserted a fresh magazine into the Mini-Uzi and looked at his watch: 9:11:07.

“Faster, Mikhail. Drive faster.”

THEY WERE doing just under a hundred along the deserted road, two black Range Rovers, both filled with former Russian special forces now employed by the private security service of Ivan Kharkov. In the front seat of the first vehicle, a cell phone trilled. It was Oleg Rudenko, calling from the helicopter.

“Where are you?”

“Close.”

“How close?”

Very . . .

FOR REASONS that would be made clear to Gabriel in short order, the track from the dacha to the road did not run in a straight line. Viewed from an American spy satellite, it looked rather like an inverted S rendered by the hand of a young child. Viewed from the front passenger seat of a speeding Range Rover in late winter, it was a sea of white. White snow. White birch trees. And, just around the second bend, a pair of white headlamps approaching at an alarmingly rapid rate.

Mikhail instinctively hit the brakes—in hindsight, a mistake, since it gave a slight advantage on impact to the other vehicle. The air bags spared them serious injury but left Gabriel and Mikhail too dazed to resist when the Rover was stormed by several men. Gabriel briefly glimpsed the butt of a Russian pistol arcing toward the side of his head. Then there was only white. White snow. White birch trees. Chiara floating away from him, dressed all in white.

66

GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON

FOR SHAMRON, the first inkling of trouble was the sudden silence at King Saul Boulevard. Three times he asked for an explanation. Three times he received no reply.

Finally a voice. “We’ve lost them.”

“What do you mean, lost?”

They had heard a noise of some sort. Sounded like a collision. A crash. Then voices. Russian voices.

“You’re sure they were Russian?”

“We’re double-checking the tapes. But we’re sure.”

“Were they off Ivan’s property when it happened?”

“We don’t think so.”

“What about their radios?”

“Off the air.”

“Where’s the rest of the team?”

“Departing as planned.” A pause. “Unless you want to send them back in.”

Shamron hesitated. Of course he wanted to send them back. But he couldn’t. Better to lose three than six. The numbers . . .

“Tell Uzi to keep going. And no heroics. Tell them to get the hell out of there.”

“Right.”

“Keep the line open. Let me know if you hear anything.”

Shamron closed his eyes for a few seconds, then looked at Adrian Carter and Graham Seymour. The two men had heard only Shamron’s end of the conversation. It had been enough.

“What time did Ivan leave Konakovo?” Shamron asked.

“All the birds were airborne by ten past.”

“Flying time between Konakovo and the dacha?”

“One hour. Maybe a bit more if the weather’s lousy.”

Shamron looked at the clock: 9:14:56.

That would put Ivan on the ground in Vladimirskaya Oblast at approximately 10:10. It was possible he had already ordered his men to kill Gabriel and the others. Possible, thought Shamron, but not likely. Knowing Ivan, he would reserve that privilege for himself.