Daniel Silva - The defector

“Send them, Vadim.”

“On whose authority?”

“The president’s, of course.”

Strelkin gave the order.

“You have a bright future, Vadim.”

Strelkin looked out the window. “And you have a helicopter.”

“No, Vadim, we have a helicopter. I’m not going out there alone.”

Milchenko reached for his overcoat and headed toward the door with Strelkin at his heels. Five below and snow in the air, and he was going to Vladimirskaya Oblast to save three Jews and a Russian traitor from Ivan Kharkov. Not exactly the way he’d hoped to spend the day.

THOUGH THE colonel did not know it, the four people whose lives were now in his hands were at that moment seated along the four walls of the cell, one to each wall, wrists tightly trussed at their backs, legs stretched before them, feet touching. The door to the cell was ajar; two men, guns at the ready, stood just outside. The blow that felled Mikhail had opened a deep gash above his left eye. Gabriel had been struck behind the right ear, and his neck was now a river of blood. A victim of too many concussions, he was struggling to silence the bells tolling in his ears. Mikhail was looking around the interior of the cell, as if searching for a way out. Chiara was watching him, as was Grigori.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured in Russian. “Surely you’re not thinking about trying to escape?”

Mikhail glanced at the guards. “And give those apes an excuse to kill me? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“So what’s so interesting about the cell?”

“The fact that it exists at all.”

“Meaning?”

“Did you have a dacha, Grigori?”

“We had one when I was a boy.”

“Your father was Party?”

Grigori hesitated, then nodded. “Yours?”

“For a while.”

“What happened?”

“My father and the Party went their separate ways.”

“Your father was a dissident?”

“Dissident, refusenik-you pick the word, Grigori. He just came to hate the Party and everything it stood for. That’s why he ended up in your little shop of horrors.”

“Did he have a dacha?”

“Until the KGB took it from him. And I’ll tell you something, Grigori. It didn’t have a room in the cellar like this. In fact, it didn’t have a cellar at all.”

“Neither did ours.”

“Did you have a floor?”

“A crude one.” Grigori managed a smile. “My father wasn’t a very senior Party official.”

“Do you remember all the crazy rules?”

“How could you forget them?”

“No heating allowed.”

“No dachas larger than twenty-five square meters.”

“My father got around the restrictions by adding a veranda. We used to joke that it was the biggest veranda in Russia.”

“Ours was bigger, I’m sure.”

“But no cellar, right, Grigori?”

“No cellar.”

“So why was this chap allowed to build a cellar?”

“He must have been Party.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Maybe he kept his wine down here.”

“Come on, Grigori. You can do better than that.”

“Meat? Maybe he liked meat.”

“He must have been a very senior Party official to need a meat locker this big.”

“You have another theory?”

“I used a couple of pounds of explosive to blow open the front door. If I’d placed a charge that big in front of our old dacha, it would have brought the entire place down.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“This place was well built. Purpose-built. Look at the concrete, Grigori. This is the good stuff. Not the crap they gave the rest of us. The crap that used to fall away in chunks and turn to powder after one winter.”

“It’s old, this place. The rot hadn’t set into the system when they built it.”

“How old?”

“Thirties, I’d say.”

“Stalin’s time?”

“May he rest in peace.”

Gabriel lifted his chin from his chest. In Hebrew, he asked, “What in God’s name are the two of you talking about?”

“Architecture,” Mikhail said. “The architecture of dachas, to be precise.”

“Is there something you want to tell me, Mikhail?”

“Something’s not right about this place.” Mikhail moved his foot. “Why is there a drain in the middle of this floor, Gabriel? And what are those depressions out back?”

“You tell me, Mikhail.”

Mikhail was silent for a moment. Then he changed the subject.

“How’s your head?”

“I’m still hearing things.”

“Still the bells?”

Gabriel closed his eyes and sat very still.

“No, not bells.”

Helicopters.

SOMEWHERE DURING his rise to wealth and power, Ivan Kharkov learned how to make an entrance. He knew how to enter a restaurant or the lobby of a luxury hotel. He knew how to enter a boardroom filled with rivals or the bed of a lover. And he certainly knew how to enter a dank cell filled with four people he intended to kill with his own hand. Intriguing was how little the performance varied from venue to venue. Indeed, to watch Ivan now was to imagine him standing at the doorway of Le Grand Joseph or Villa Romana, his old haunts in Saint-Tropez. Though he was a man with many enemies, Ivan never liked to rush things. He preferred to survey the room and allow the room to survey him in return. He liked to flaunt his clothing. And his sundial-sized wristwatch, which, for reasons known only to him, he was looking at now, as if annoyed at a maître d’ for making him wait five minutes for a promised table.

Ivan lowered his arm and inserted his hand into the pocket of his overcoat. It was unbuttoned, as if he were anticipating physical exertion. His gaze drifted slowly around the cell, settling first on Grigori, then Chiara, then Gabriel, and, finally, on Mikhail. Mikhail’s presence seemed to lift Ivan’s spirits. Mikhail was a bonus, a windfall profit. Mikhail and Ivan had a history. Mikhail had dined with Ivan. Mikhail had been invited to Ivan’s home. And Mikhail had had an affair with Ivan’s wife. At least, that’s what Ivan believed. Shortly before Ivan’s fall, two of his thugs had given Mikhail a good thrashing at a café along the Old Port in Saint-Tropez. It was but an aperitif. Judging from Ivan’s expression, a banquet of pain was being prepared. He and Mikhail were going to partake of it together.

His gaze swept slowly back and forth, a searchlight over an open field, and came to rest once more on Gabriel. Then he spoke for the first time. Gabriel had spent hours listening to recordings of Ivan’s voice, but never had he heard it in person. Ivan’s English, while perfect, was spoken with the accent of a Cold War propagandist on old Radio Moscow. His rich baritone caused the walls of the cell to vibrate.

“I’m so pleased I was able to reunite you with your wife, Allon. At least one of us kept up his end of the bargain.”

“And what bargain was that?”

“I release your wife, you return my children.”

“Anna and Nikolai were on the ground at Konakovo at nine o’clock this morning.”

“I didn’t realize you were on a first-name basis with my children.”

Gabriel looked at Chiara, then stared directly into Ivan’s iron gaze. “If my wife had been outside the embassy at nine o’clock, your children would be with you right now. But my wife wasn’t there. And so your children are heading back to America.”

“Do you take me for a fool, Allon? You never intended to let my children off that plane.”

“It was their decision, Ivan. I hear they even gave you a note.”

“It was an obvious forgery, just like that painting you sold my wife. Which reminds me: you owe me two and a half million dollars, not to mention the twenty million dollars your service stole from my bank accounts.”