The Defector (4 page)

“Neither do I, Uzi.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Navot looked at the scar near Gabriel’s right eye. “By dawn, we’d all but written you off. Then a communications clerk burst into the Operations Room and said you’d just called in on the flash line—from Ukraine, of all places. When we heard your voice for the first time, it was pandemonium. Not only had you made it out of Russia alive with Ivan Kharkov’s darkest secrets, but you’d brought along a carload of defectors, including Colonel Grigori Bulganov, the highest-ranking FSB officer to ever come across the wire. Not bad for an evening’s work. Moscow was among your finest hours. But for me, it will be a permanent stain on an otherwise clean record. And you put it there, Gabriel. That’s why you weren’t invited to my wedding.”

“I’m sorry, Uzi.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For putting you in a difficult position.”

“But not for refusing a direct order?”

Gabriel was silent. Navot shook his head slowly.

“You’re a smug bastard, Gabriel. I should have broken your arm in Moscow and dragged you to the car.”

“What do you want me to say, Uzi?”

“I want you to tell me it will never happen again.”

“And if it does?”

“First I’ll break your arm. Then I’ll resign as chief of Special Ops, which will leave them with no other option but to give you the job. And I know how much you want that.”

Gabriel raised his right hand. “Never again, Uzi—in the field, or anywhere else.”

“Say it.”

“I’m sorry for what transpired between us in Moscow. And I swear I’ll never disobey another direct order from you.”

Navot appeared instantly mollified. Personal confrontation had never been his strong suit.

“That’s it, Uzi? You came all the way to Umbria because you wanted an apology?”

“And a promise, Gabriel. Don’t forget the promise.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“Good.” Navot placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Because I want you to listen to me very carefully. We’re going to go back to your villa of flowers, and you’re going to pack your bags. Then we’re going to Rome to spend the night inside the embassy. Tomorrow morning, when the ten o’clock flight takes off from Fiumicino Airport for Tel Aviv, we’re going to be on it, second row of first class, side by side.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Because Colonel Grigori Bulganov is gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“I mean gone, Gabriel. No longer among us. Vanished into thin air. Gone.”

5

AMELIA , UMBRIA

HOW LONG has he been missing?”

“About a week now.”

“Be specific, Uzi.”

“Colonel Grigori Bulganov was last spotted climbing into the back of a Mercedes sedan on Harrow Road at 6:12 p.m. on Tuesday evening.”

They were walking through the dying twilight, along a narrow cobblestone street in Amelia’s ancient center. Trailing a few paces behind was a pair of fawn-eyed bodyguards. It was a troubling sign. Navot usually traveled with only a bat leveyha, a female escort officer, for protection. The fact he had brought along two trained killers indicated he took the threat to Gabriel’s life seriously.

“When did the British get around to telling us?”

“They placed a quiet call to London Station on Saturday afternoon, four days after the fact. Because it was Shabbat, the duty officer was a kid who didn’t quite understand the significance of what he’d just been told. The kid tapped out a cable and sent it off to King Saul Boulevard at low priority. Fortunately, the duty officer on the European Desk did understand and immediately placed a courtesy call to Shamron.”

Gabriel shook his head. It had been years now since Shamron had done his last tour as chief, yet the Office was still very much his private fiefdom. It was filled with officers like Gabriel and Navot, men who had been recruited and groomed by Shamron, men who operated by a creed, even spoke a language, written by him. In Israel, Shamron was known as the Memuneh, the one in charge, and he would remain so until the day he finally decided the country was safe enough for him to die.

“And I assume Shamron then called you,” Gabriel said.

“He did, though it was distinctly lacking in courtesy of any kind. He told me to send you a message. Then he told me to grab a couple of boys and get on a plane. This seems to be my lot in life—the dutiful younger son who is dispatched into the wilderness every few months to track down his wayward older brother.”

“Was Grigori under surveillance when he got into the car?”

“Apparently not.”

“So how are the British so certain about what happened?”

“Their little electronic helpers were watching.”

Navot was referring to CCTV, the ubiquitous network of ten thousand closed-circuit television cameras that gave London’s Metropolitan Police the ability to monitor activity, criminal or otherwise, on virtually every street in the British capital. A recent government study had concluded that the system had failed in its primary objective: deterring crime and apprehending criminals. Only three percent of street robberies were solved using CCTV technology, and crime rates in London were soaring. Embarrassed police officials explained away the failure by pointing out that the criminals had accounted for the cameras by adjusting their tactics, such as wearing masks and hats to conceal their identities. Apparently, no one in charge had considered that possibility before spending hundreds of millions of pounds and invading the public’s privacy on an unprecedented scale. The subjects of the United Kingdom, birthplace of Western democracy, now resided in an Orwellian world where their every movement was watched over by the eyes of the state.

“When did the British discover he was gone?” Gabriel asked.

“Not until the following morning. He was supposed to check in by telephone each night at ten. When he didn’t call on Tuesday, his minder wasn’t overly concerned. Grigori played chess every Tuesday night at a little club in Bloomsbury. Last Tuesday was the championship of his club’s annual tournament. Grigori was expected to win easily.”

“I never knew he played.”

“I guess he never had a chance to mention it during that evening you spent together in the interrogation rooms of Lubyanka. He was too busy trying to figure out how a midlevel functionary from the Israeli Ministry of Culture had managed to disarm and kill a pair of Chechen assassins.”

“As I recall, Uzi, I wouldn’t have been in the stairwell if it wasn’t for you and Shamron. It was one of those little in-and-out jobs you two are always dreaming up. The kind that are supposed to go smoothly. The kind where no one is supposed to get hurt. But it never seems to work out that way.”

“Some men are born great. Others just get all the great assignments from King Saul Boulevard.”

“Assignments that get them thrown into the cells in the basement of Lubyanka. And if it wasn’t for Colonel Grigori Bulganov, I would have never walked out of that place alive. He saved my life, Uzi. Twice.”

“I remember,” Navot said sardonically. “We all remember.”

“Why didn’t the British tell us sooner?”

“They thought it was possible Grigori had simply strayed off the reservation. Or that he was shacked up with some girl in a little seaside hotel. They wanted to be certain he was missing before pulling the fire alarm. He’s gone, Gabriel. And the last place on earth they can account for him is that car. It’s as if it was a portal to oblivion.”

“I’m sure it was. Do they have a theory yet?”

“They do. And I’m afraid you’re not going to like it. You see, Gabriel, the mandarins of British intelligence have concluded that Colonel Grigori Bulganov has redefected.”

“Redefected? You can’t be serious.”

“I am. What’s more, they’ve convinced themselves he was a double agent all along. They believe he came to the West to spoon-feed us a load of Russian crap and to gather information on the Russian dissident community in London. And now, having succeeded, he’s flown the coop and returned home to a hero’s welcome. And guess whom they blame for this catastrophe?”

“The person who brought Grigori to the West in the first place.”

“That’s correct. They blame you.”

“How convenient. But Grigori Bulganov is no more a Russian double agent than I am. The British have concocted this ludicrous theory in order to shift the blame for his disappearance from their shoulders, where it belongs, to mine. He should never have been allowed to live openly in London. I couldn’t turn on the BBC or CNN International last fall without seeing his face.”

“So what do you think happened to him?”

“He was killed, Uzi. Or worse.”

“What could be worse than being taken out by a Russian hit team?”

“Being kidnapped by Ivan Kharkov.” Gabriel stopped walking and turned to face Navot in the empty street. “But then you already know that, Uzi. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

6

AMELIA , UMBRIA

THEY CLIMBED the winding streets to the piazza at the highest point of the city and looked down at the lights glowing like bits of topaz and garnet on the valley floor. The two bodyguards waited on the opposite side of the square, well out of earshot. One held a cell phone to his ear; the other, a lighter to a cigarette. When Gabriel glimpsed the flame, an image flashed in his memory. He was riding through the misty plains of western Russia at dawn in the front passenger seat of a Volga sedan, his head throbbing, his right eye blinded by a crude dressing. Two beautiful women slept like small children in the backseat. One was Olga Sukhova, Russia’s most famous opposition journalist. The other was Elena Kharkov, wife of Ivan Borisovich Kharkov: oligarch, arms dealer, murderer. Seated behind the wheel, a cigarette burning between his thumb and forefinger, was Grigori Bulganov. He was speaking softly so as not to wake the women, his eyes fixed on a Russian road without end.

Do you know what we do with traitors, Gabriel? We take them into a small room and make them kneel. Then we shoot them in the back of the head with a large-caliber handgun. We make certain the round exits the face so there’s nothing left for the family to see. Then we throw the body in an unmarked grave. Many things have changed in Russia since the fall of Communism. But the punishment for betrayal remains the same. Promise me one thing, Gabriel. Promise me I won’t end up in an unmarked grave.

Gabriel heard a sudden rustle of wings and, looking up, saw a squadron of warring rooks wheeling around the piazza’s Romanesque campanile. The next voice he heard was Uzi Navot’s.

“You can be sure of one thing, Gabriel. The only person Ivan Kharkov wants dead more than Grigori is you. And who could blame him? First you stole his secrets. Then you stole his wife and children.”

“I didn’t steal anything. Elena offered to defect. I just helped her.”

“I doubt Ivan sees it that way. And neither does the Memuneh. The Memuneh believes Ivan is back in business. The Memuneh believes Ivan has made his first move.”

Gabriel was silent. Navot turned up the collar of his overcoat.

“You may recall that we were picking up reports last autumn about a special unit Ivan had created within his personal security service. That unit was given a simple assignment. Find Elena, get back his children, and kill everyone who participated in the operation against him. We allowed ourselves to be lulled into thinking that Ivan had cooled off. Grigori’s disappearance suggests otherwise.”

“Ivan will never find me, Uzi. Not here.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on that?”

“Five people know I’m in the country: the Italian prime minister, the chiefs of his intelligence and security services, the pope, and the pope’s private secretary.”

“That’s five people too many.” Navot laid a large hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. Whether Grigori Bulganov left London voluntarily or at the point of a Russian pistol is of little or no consequence. You’re compromised, Gabriel. And you’re leaving here tonight.”

“I’ve been compromised before. Besides, Grigori has no knowledge of my cover or where I’m living. He can’t betray me, and Shamron knows it. He’s using Grigori’s disappearance as his latest excuse to get me back to Israel. Once I’m there, he’ll lock me away in solitary confinement. And I’m sure when my defenses are at their weakest, he’ll offer me a way out. I’ll be the director, and you’ll be in charge of Special Ops. And Shamron will be able to finally die in peace, knowing that his two favorite sons are finally in control of his beloved Office.”

“That might be Shamron’s overall strategy, but for the moment he’s only concerned about your safety. He has no ulterior motives.”

“Shamron is ulterior motives personified, Uzi. And so are you.”

Navot removed his hand from Gabriel’s shoulder. “I’m afraid this isn’t a debate, Gabriel. You might be the boss one day, but for now I’m ordering you to leave Italy and come home. You’re not going to disobey another order, are you?”

Gabriel made no reply.

“You have too many enemies to be alone in the world, Gabriel. You might think your friend the pope will look after you, but you’re wrong. You need us as much as we need you. Besides, we’re the only family you’ve got.”

Navot gave a shrewd smile. The countless hours he had spent in the executive conference rooms of King Saul Boulevard had significantly sharpened his debating skills. He was now a formidable opponent, one who had to be handled with care.

“I’m working on a painting,” Gabriel said. “I can’t leave until it’s finished.”

“How long?” Navot asked.

Three months, thought Gabriel. Then he said, “Three days.”

Navot sighed. He oversaw a unit consisting of several hundred highly skilled operatives but only one whose movements were dictated by the fickle rhythms of restoring Old Master paintings.

“I take it your wife is still in Venice?”

“She’s coming back tonight.”

“She should have told me she was going to Venice before she left. You might be a private contractor, Gabriel, but your wife is a full-time employee of Special Ops. As such, she is required to keep her supervisor, me, abreast of all her movements, personal and professional. Perhaps you would be good enough to remind her of that fact.”