Daniel Silva - The defector

“Because I have to search you before letting you anywhere near those children.”

“This is outrageous.”

“I would hate for Ivan Kharkov to find out you-”

The ambassador extended his arms and spread his feet. Fielding took his time with the search and made sure it was as invasive and mortifying as possible. When the search was over, he squirted liquid desanitizer on his hands.

“Two questions, no touching. Are we clear, Mr. Ambassador?”

“We’re clear, Mr. Harris.”

“Follow me, please.”

IT WAS a small room, hung with photographs of the installation’s storied past: presidents departing on historic journeys, POWs returning from years of captivity, flag-draped coffins coming home for burial in American soil. Had photographers been present that afternoon, they would have captured an image of great sadness: a mother holding her children, possibly for the last time. But there were no photographers, of course, because the mother and children were not there-at least, not officially. As for the two flights that would soon tear this family apart, they did not exist, either, and no records of them would ever find their way into the control tower’s logbook.

They were huddled together along a couch of black vinyl. Elena, dressed in blue jeans and a shearling coat, was seated in the center, an arm around each child. Their faces were buried in her collar, and they remained that way long after the Russian ambassador entered the room. Elena refused to look at him. Her lips were pressed to Anna’s forehead, her gaze focused on the pale gray carpet.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Kharkov,” the ambassador said in Russian.

Elena made no response. The ambassador looked at Fielding. In English, he said, “I need to see their faces. Otherwise, I cannot confirm that these are indeed the children of Ivan Kharkov.”

“You have two questions, Mr. Ambassador. Ask them to lift their faces. But make certain you ask them nicely. Otherwise, I might get upset.”

The ambassador looked at the distraught family seated before him. In Russian, he asked, “Please, children, lift your faces so I can see them.”

The children remained motionless.

“Try speaking to them in English,” said Fielding.

Tretyakov did as Fielding suggested. This time, the children raised their faces and stared at the ambassador with undisguised hostility. Tretyakov appeared satisfied the children were indeed Anna and Nikolai Kharkov.

“Your father is looking forward to seeing you. Are you excited about going home?”

“No,” said Anna.

“No,” repeated Nikolai. “We want to stay here with our mother.”

“Perhaps your mother should come home, too.”

Elena looked at Tretyakov for the first time. Then her gaze moved to Fielding. “Please take him away, Mr. Harris. His presence is beginning to make me ill.”

Fielding escorted the ambassador next door to the Base Ops building. They were standing together on the observation deck when Elena and the children emerged from the passenger terminal, accompanied by several security officers. The group moved slowly across the tarmac and climbed the passenger-boarding stairs to the doorway of a C-32. Elena Kharkov emerged ten minutes later without the children, visibly shaken. Clinging to the arm of an Air Force officer, she walked over to a Gulfstream and disappeared into the cabin.

“You must be very proud, Mr. Ambassador,” Fielding said.

“You had no right to take them from their father in the first place.”

The cabin door of the C-32 was now closed. The boarding stairs moved away, followed by the fuel and catering trucks. Five minutes after that, the plane was rising over the Maryland suburbs of Washington. Fielding watched it disappear into the clouds, then looked contemptuously at the ambassador.

“Nine a.m. at the Konakovo airfield. Remember, no Ivan, no children. Are we clear, Mr. Ambassador?”

“He’ll be there.”

“You’re free to leave. You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hand. I’m feeling a bit ill myself.”

ED FIELDING remained on the observation deck until the ambassador and his entourage were safely off base, then boarded the waiting Gulfstream. Elena Kharkov was buckled into her seat, eyes fixed on the deserted tarmac.

“How long do we have to wait?”

“Not long, Elena. Are you going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine, Ed. Let’s go home.”

GABRIEL WAS notified of the plane’s departure at 10:45 p.m. Moscow time while standing in the window of his room at the Metropol. He had been there, on and off, since returning from his foray into Tverskaya Street. Ten hours with nothing to do but pace the floor and make himself sick with worry. Ten hours with nothing to do but picture the operation from beginning to end a thousand times. Ten hours with nothing to do but think about Ivan. He wondered how his enemy would spend this night. Would he spend it quietly with his child bride? Or perhaps a celebration was in order: a blowout . That was the word Ivan and his cohorts used to describe the parties thrown at the conclusion of a major arms deal. The bigger the deal, the bigger the blowout.

With the children’s plane now bound for Russia, Gabriel felt his nerves turn to piano wire. He tried to slow his racing heart, but his body refused his commands. He tried to close his eyes, but saw only satellite photos of the little dacha in the birch forest. And the room where Chiara and Grigori were surely being kept chained and bound. And the four streams that converged in a great marshland. And the parallel depressions in the woods.

My husband is a devout Stalinist… His love of Stalin has influenced his real estate purchases.

The secure PDA helped pass the time. It told him that Navot, Yaakov, and Oded were proceeding to the target. It told him that the concealed camera had detected no change at the dacha or in the disposition of Ivan’s forces. It told him that God had granted them a heavy ground fog over the marshes to help conceal their approach. And finally, at 1:48 a.m., it told him that it was nearly time to leave.

Gabriel had dressed long ago and was sweating beneath layer upon layer of protective clothing. He forced himself to remain in the room a few minutes longer, then switched off the lights and slipped quietly into the corridor. As the clock in the lobby tolled 2 a.m., he stepped from the elevator and passed Khrushchev’s doppelgänger with a curt nod. The Range Rover was waiting in Teatralnyy Prospekt, engine running. Mikhail drummed his fingers nervously as they swept up the hill toward FSB Headquarters.

“You okay, Mikhail?”

“I’m fine, boss.”

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“Why would I be nervous? I love being around Lubyanka. The KGB kept my father in there for six months when I was a kid. Did I ever tell you that, Gabriel?”

He had.

“Do you have the guns?”

“Plenty.”

“Radios?”

“Of course.”

“Sat phone?”

“Gabriel, please.”

“Coffee?”

“Two thermoses. One for us, one for them.”

“What about the bolt cutters?”

“A pair for each of us. Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“One of us goes down.”

“Nobody’s going down except Ivan’s guards.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Mikhail resumed his tapping.

“You’re not going to do that all the way?”

“I’ll try not to.”

“That’s good. Because you’re giving me a headache.”

MOSCOW REFUSED to relinquish its grip on them without a fight. It took thirty minutes just to get from Lubyanka to the MKAD outer ring road: thirty minutes of traffic jams, broken signal lights, sinkholes, crime scenes, and unexplained militia roadblocks. “And it’s two in the morning,” Mikhail said in exasperation. “Imagine what it’s like during the evening rush, when half of Moscow is trying to get home at the same time.”