Daniel Silva - The defector

“Is that why the president is so willing to tolerate your activities?”

“He gets his cut. The tsar takes a cut of everything.”

“How much did you have to pay him for the right to kidnap my wife?”

Ivan made no response. Gabriel pressed him to see if he could provoke another outburst of anger.

“How much, Ivan? Five million? Ten? Twenty?”

Ivan wheeled around. “I’m tired of your questions, Allon. Besides, we haven’t much farther to go. Your unmarked grave awaits you.”

Gabriel looked beyond Chiara’s shoulder and saw a mound of fresh earth, covered by a dusting of snow. He told her he loved her. Then he closed his eyes. He was hearing things again.

Helicopters.

COLONEL LEONID Milchenko could finally see the property: four frozen streams meeting in a frozen marsh, a small dacha with a hole blown in the front door, a line of people walking slowly through a birch forest.

He opened the mic on his headset.

“Do you see them?”

The pilot’s helmet moved up and down rapidly.

“How close can you get?”

“Edge of the marsh.”

“That’s at least three hundred meters away.”

“That’s as close as I can put this thing down, Colonel.”

“What about the Alphas?”

“Fast rope insertion. Right into the trees.”

“Nobody dies.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Nobody dies…

Who was he kidding? This was Russia. Someone always died.

…

TEN MORE paces through the snow. Then Ivan heard the helicopters, too. He stopped. Cocked his head, doglike. Shot a glance at Rudenko. Started walking again.

Time… Precious time…

NAVOT’S MESSAGE flashed across the screens of the annex.

Carter covered his telephone and looked at Shamron.

“The FSB team confirms a line of people walking into the trees. It looks as if they’re alive, Ari!”

“They won’t be for long. When will those Alpha Group forces be on the ground?”

“Ninety seconds.”

Shamron closed his eyes.

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

THE BURIAL pit opened before them, a wound in the flesh of Mother Russia. The ashen sky wept snow as they filed slowly toward it, accompanied by the thumping of distant rotors. Big rotors , thought Gabriel. Big enough to make the forest shake. Big enough to make Ivan’s men restless. Ivan, too. Suddenly he was shouting at Grigori in Russian, exhorting him to walk faster to his death. But Gabriel, in his thoughts, was pleading for Grigori to slow his pace. To stumble. To do anything possible to allow the helicopters time to arrive.

Just then, the first swept in at treetop level, leaving a temporary blizzard in its wake. Ivan was briefly lost in the whiteout. When he reemerged, his face was contorted with rage. He shoved Grigori toward the edge of the pit and began screaming at his guards in Russian. Most were no longer paying attention. A few of his mutinous legion were watching the helicopter settling at the edge of the marshland. The others had their eyes on the western sky, where two more helicopters had appeared.

Four bodyguards remained loyal to Ivan. At his command they placed the condemned in a line at the edge of the pit, heels against the edge, for Ivan had decreed that all were to be shot in the face. Gabriel was placed at one end, Mikhail at the other, Chiara and Grigori in the center. At first Grigori was positioned next to Gabriel, but apparently that wouldn’t do. In a burst of rapid Russian, his gun flailing wildly, Ivan ordered the guards to quickly move Grigori and place Chiara at Gabriel’s side.

As the exchange was being made, two more helicopters thundered in from the west. Unlike the first, they did not streak past but hovered directly overhead. Ropes uncoiled from their bellies, and in an instant black-suited special forces were descending rapidly through the trees. Gabriel heard the sound of weapons dropping into the snow and saw arms raising in surrender. And he glimpsed two men in overcoats running awkwardly toward them through the trees. And he saw Oleg Rudenko trying desperately to remove the Makarov from Ivan’s grasp. But Ivan would not relinquish it. Ivan wanted his blood.

Ivan gave his security chief a single mighty shove in the chest that sent him tumbling into the snow. Then he pointed the Makarov directly into Gabriel’s face. He did not pull the trigger. Instead, he smiled and said, “Enjoy watching your wife die, Allon.”

The Makarov moved to the right. Gabriel hurled himself toward Ivan but could not reach him before the gun exploded with a deafening roar. As he toppled face-first into the snow, two Alpha Group men immediately leapt onto his back and pinned him to the frozen ground. For several agonizing seconds, he struggled to free himself, but the Russians refused to allow him to move or to lift his head. “My wife!” he shouted at them. “Did he kill my wife?” Whether they answered, he did not know. The gunshot had robbed him of the ability to hear. He was aware only of a titanic physical struggle taking place near his shoulder. Then, a moment later, he glimpsed Ivan being led away through the trees.

Only then did the Russians help Gabriel to rise. Twisting his head quickly around, he saw Chiara weeping over a fallen body. It was Grigori. Gabriel dropped to his knees and tried to console her, but she seemed unaware of his presence. “They never killed her,” she was screaming. “Irina is alive, Grigori! Irina is alive !”

IN THE DAYS following the conclusion of the G-8 summit in Moscow, three seemingly unconnected news stories broke in quick succession. The first concerned Russia ’s uncertain future; the second, its dark past. The last managed to touch upon both, and ultimately would prove to be the most controversial. But then, that was to be expected, grumbled a few of the old hands at British intelligence, since the subject of the story was none other than Grigori Bulganov.

The first story unfolded exactly one week after the summit and had for its backdrop the Russian economy-more to the point, its all-important energy industry. Because it was good news, at least from Moscow ’s point of view, the Russian president chose to make the announcement himself. He did so in a Kremlin news conference, flanked by several of his most senior aides, all veterans of the KGB. In a terse statement, delivered with his trademark glare, the president announced that Viktor Orlov, the dissident former oligarch now residing in London, had finally been brought to heel. All of Orlov’s shares in Ruzoil, the Siberian oil giant, were to be immediately placed under the control of Gazprom, Russia ’s state-owned oil-and-gas monopoly. In exchange, said the president, Russian authorities had agreed to drop all criminal charges against Orlov and withdraw their request for his extradition.

In London, Downing Street hailed the Russian president’s gesture as “statesmanlike,” while Russia hands at the Foreign Ministry and the policy institutes openly wondered whether a new wind might be blowing from the East. Viktor Orlov found such speculation hopelessly naïve, but the reporters who attended his hastily called London news conference did walk away with the sense that Viktor was not long for the fight. His decision to surrender Ruzoil, he said, was based on a realistic assessment of the facts. The Kremlin was now controlled by men who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. When fighting such men, he conceded, victory was not possible, only death. Or perhaps something worse than death. Viktor promised not to be silenced, then promptly announced he had nothing further to say.