Daniel Silva: The defector

“Who gave you the shots?” he asked.

“It was the woman. I see her death every night. It’s the one memory I don’t run from.” She wiped away his tears. “I need you to make me three promises, Gabriel.”

“Anything.”

“Promise me we’ll have a baby.”

“I promise.”

“Promise me we’ll never be apart.”

“Never.”

“And promise me you’ll kill them all.”

The next day, these two human wrecks presented themselves at King Saul Boulevard. Along with Mikhail, they were subjected to rigorous physical and psychological evaluations. Uzi Navot reviewed the results that evening. Afterward, he telephoned Shamron at his home in Tiberias.

“How bad?” Shamron asked.

“Very.”

“When will he be ready to work again?”

“It’s going to be a while.”

“How long, Uzi?”

“Maybe never.”

“And Mikhail?”

“He’s a mess, Ari. They’re all a mess.”

Shamron fell silent. “The worst thing we can do is let him sit around. He needs to get back on the horse.”

“I take it you have an idea?”

“How’s the interrogation of Petrov coming along?”

“He’s putting up a good fight.”

“Go down to the Negev, Uzi. Light a fire under the interrogators.”

“What do you want?”

“I want the names. All of them.”

BY THEN it was late March. The cold winter rains had come and gone, and the spring weather was warm and fine. At the suggestion of the doctors, they tried to get out of the apartment at least once a day. They reveled in the mundane: a trip to the bustling Makhane Yehuda Market, a stroll through the narrow streets of the Old City, a quiet lunch in one of their favorite restaurants. At Shamron’s insistence, they were accompanied always by a pair of bodyguards, young boys with cropped hair and sunglasses who reminded them both too much of Lior and Motti. Chiara said she wanted to visit the memorial north of Tel Aviv. Seeing the bodyguards’ names engraved in stone left her so distraught Gabriel had to practically carry her back to the car. Two days later, on the Mount of Olives, it was his turn to collapse in grief. Lior and Motti had been buried only a few yards from his son.

Gabriel felt an unusually strong desire to spend time with Leah, and Chiara, unable to bear his absence, had no choice but to go with him. They would sit with Leah for hours in the garden of the hospital and listen patiently while she wandered through time, now in the present, now in the past. With each visit she grew more comfortable in Chiara’s company, and, in moments of lucidity, the two women compared notes on what it was like to live with Gabriel Allon. They talked about his idiosyncrasies and his mood swings, and his need for absolute silence while he was working. And when they were feeling generous, they talked about his incredible gifts. Then the light would go out in Leah’s eyes, and she would return once more to her own private hell. And sometimes Gabriel and Chiara would return to theirs. Leah’s doctor seemed to sense something was amiss. During a visit in early April, he pulled Gabriel and Chiara aside and quietly asked whether they needed professional help.

“You both look as if you haven’t slept in weeks.”

“We haven’t,” said Gabriel.

“Do you want to talk to someone?”

“We’re not allowed.”

“Trouble at work?”

“Something like that.”

“Can I give you something to help you sleep?”

“We have a pharmacy in our medicine cabinet.”

“I don’t want to see you back here for at least a week. Take a trip. Get some sun. You look like ghosts.”

The next morning, shadowed by bodyguards, they drove to Eilat. For three days, they managed not to speak about Russia, or Ivan, or Grigori, or the birch forest outside Moscow. They spent their time sunning themselves on the beach or snorkeling amid the coral reefs of the Red Sea. They ate too much food, drank too much wine, and made love until they were overcome by exhaustion. On their last night, they talked about the future, about the promise Gabriel had made to leave the Office, and about where they might live. For the moment, they had no choice but to remain in Israel. To leave the country and the protective cocoon of the Office was not possible so long as Ivan was still walking the face of the earth.

“And if he wasn’t?” asked Chiara.

“We can live wherever we like-within reason, of course.”

“Then I suppose you’ll just have to kill him.”

They left Eilat the next morning and set out for Jerusalem. While crossing the Negev, Gabriel decided quite spontaneously to make a brief detour near Beersheba. His destination was a prison and interrogation center, located in the center of a restricted military zone. It housed only a handful of inmates, the so-called worst of the worst. Included in this select group was Prisoner 6754, also known as Anton Petrov, the man Ivan had hired to kidnap Grigori and Chiara. The commander of the facility arranged for Petrov to be brought to the exercise yard so Gabriel and Chiara could see him. He wore a blue-and-white tracksuit. His muscle was gone, along with most of his hair. He walked with a heavy limp.

“Too bad you didn’t kill him,” Chiara said.

“Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind.”

“How long will we keep him?”

“As long as we need to.”

“And then?”

“The Americans would like a word with him.”

“Someone needs to make sure he has an accident.”

“We’ll see.”

It was dark when they arrived in Narkiss Street. Gabriel could tell by the abundance of bodyguards they had a visitor waiting upstairs in the apartment. Uzi Navot was seated in the living room. He had a dossier. He had names. Eleven names. All former KGB. All living well in Western Europe on Ivan’s money. Navot left the folder with Gabriel and said he would wait to hear from him. Gabriel allowed Chiara to make the decision.

“Kill them all,” she said.

“It’s going to take time.”

“Take as much time as you need.”

“You won’t be able to come.”

“I know.”

“You’ll go to Tiberias. Gilah will look after you.”

THEY CONVENED the next morning in Room 456C of King Saul Boulevard: Yaakov and Yossi, Dina and Rimona, Oded and Mordecai, Mikhail and Eli Lavon. Gabriel arrived last and tacked eleven photographs to the bulletin board at the front of the room. Eleven photographs of eleven Russians. Eleven Russians who would not survive the summer. The meeting did not take long. The order of death was established, the assignments were made. Travel saw to the flights, Identity to the passports and visas. Housekeeping opened many doors. Banking gave them a blank check.

They left Tel Aviv in waves, traveled in pairs, and reconvened two weeks later in Barcelona. There, on a quiet street in the Gothic Quarter, Gabriel and Mikhail killed the man who had been walking behind Grigori on Harrow Road the evening of his abduction. For his sins he was shot at close range with.22 caliber Berettas. As he lay dying in the gutter, Gabriel whispered two words into his ear.

For Grigori…

A week later, in the Bairro Alto of Lisbon, he whispered the same two words to the woman who had been walking toward Grigori, the woman who had carried no umbrella and had been hatless in the rain. Two weeks after that, in Biarritz, it was the turn of her partner, the man who had been walking next to her on Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge. He heard the two words while taking a midnight stroll along La Grande Plage. They were spoken to his back. When he turned, he saw Gabriel and Mikhail, arms extended, guns in their hands.

For Grigori…