Daniel Silva: The defector

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.”

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.