Daniel Silva - The defector

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.

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.

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

One hour…

The Office did not possess the capability to intervene in that amount of the time. Neither did the Americans nor the British. At this point, only one entity did: the Kremlin… The same Kremlin that had permitted Ivan to sell his weapons to al-Qaeda in the first place. The same Kremlin that had allowed Ivan to avenge the loss of his wife and children. Sergei Korovin had all but admitted that Ivan paid the Russian president for the right to kidnap Grigori and Chiara. Perhaps Shamron could find a way to outbid Ivan. But how much were four lives worth to the Russian president, a man rumored to be one of the richest in Europe? And how much would they be worth to Ivan? Shamron had to make a move Ivan could not match. And he had to do it quickly.

He gazed at the clock, Zippo turning between his fingertips.

Two turns to the right, two turns to the left…

“I’m going to need a Russian oil company, gentlemen. A very large Russian oil company. And I’m going to need it within an hour.”

“Would you care to tell me where we’re going to get a Russian oil company?” asked Carter.

Shamron looked at Seymour. “Number 43 Cheyne Walk.”

RUDENKO’S PHONE rang again. He listened for several seconds, face blank, then asked, “How many dead?”

“We’re still counting.”

“ Counting?”

“It’s bad.”

“But you’re sure it’s him?”

“No question.”

“No blood. Do you hear me? No blood.”

“I hear you.”

Rudenko severed the connection. He was about to make Ivan a very happy man. He had the one thing in the world Ivan wanted even more than his children.

He had Gabriel Allon.

THIS TIME, it was the American president who was approached by an aide. And not just any aide. His chief of staff. The exchange was whispered and brief. The president’s face remained expressionless throughout.

“Something wrong?” the British prime minister asked when the chief of staff departed.

“It appears we have a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

The president looked across the table at his Russian counterpart.