Daniel Silva - Moscow Rules

Gabriel hoisted his most affable diplomatic smile and, glass in hand, waded into the noisy smoke-filled sitting room.

He met a famous violinist who was now the leader of a ragtag opposition party called the Coalition for a Free Russia.

He met a playwright who had revived the time-tested art of Russian allegory to carefully criticize the new regime.

He met a filmmaker who had recently won a major human rights award in the West for a documentary about the gulag.

He met a woman who had been confined to an insane asylum because she had dared to carry a placard across Red Square calling for democracy in Russia.

He met an unrepentant Bolshevik who thought the only way to save Russia was to restore the dictatorship of the proletariat and burn the oligarchs at the stake.

He met a fossilized dissident from the Brezhnev era who had been raised from the near dead to wage one last futile campaign for Russian freedom.

He met a brave essayist who had been nearly beaten to death by a band of Unity Party Youth.

And finally, ten minutes after his arrival, he introduced himself to a reporter from Moskovsky Gazeta, who, owing to the murders of two colleagues, had recently been promoted to the post of acting editor in chief. She wore a black sleeveless dress and a silver locket around her neck. The bangles on her wrist clattered like wind chimes as she extended her hand toward Gabriel and gave him a melancholy smile. “How do you do, Mr. Golani,” she said primly in English. “My name is Olga Sukhova.”

The photograph Uzi Navot had shown him a week earlier in Jerusalem had not done justice to Olga’s beauty. With translucent eyes and long, narrow features, she looked to Gabriel like a Russian icon come to life. He was seated at her right during dinner but managed only a few brief exchanges of conversation, largely because the documentary filmmaker monopolized her attention with a shot-by-shot description of his latest work. With no place to take shelter, Gabriel found himself in the clutches of the ancient dissident, who treated him to a lecture on the history of Russian political opposition dating back to the days of the tsars. As the waiters cleared the dessert plates, Olga gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid I feel a cigarette coming on,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”

They rose from the table together under the crestfallen gaze of the filmmaker and stepped onto the ambassador’s small terrace. It was empty and in semidarkness; in the distance loomed one of the “the Seven Sisters,” the monstrous Stalinist towers that still dominated the Moscow skyline. “ Europe ’s tallest apartment building,” she said without enthusiasm. “Everything in Russia has to be the biggest, the tallest, the fastest, or the most valuable. We cannot live as normal people.” Her lighter flared. “Is this your first time in Russia, Mr. Golani?”

“Yes,” he answered truthfully.

“And what brings you to our country?”

You , he answered truthfully again, but only to himself. Aloud, he said that he had been drafted on short notice to attend the UNESCO conference in St. Petersburg. And for the next several minutes he spoke glowingly of his achievements, until he could see that she was bored. He glanced over his shoulder, into the ambassador’s dining room, and saw no movement to indicate that their moment of privacy was about to be interrupted anytime soon.

“We have a common acquaintance,” he said. “Actually, we had a common acquaintance. I’m afraid he’s no longer alive.”

She lifted the cigarette to her lips and held it there as though it were a shield protecting her from harm. “And who might that be?” she asked in her schoolgirl English.

“Boris Ostrovsky,” Gabriel said calmly.

Her gaze was blank. The ember of her cigarette was trembling slightly in the half-light. “And how were you acquainted with Boris Ostrovsky?” she asked guardedly.

“I was in St. Peter’s Basilica when he was murdered.”

He gazed directly into the iconic face, assessing whether the fear he saw there was authentic or a forgery. Deciding it was indeed genuine, he pressed on.

“I was the reason he came to Rome in the first place. I held him while he died.”

She folded her arms defensively. “I’m sorry, Mr. Golani, but you are making me extremely uncomfortable.”

“Boris wanted to tell me something, Miss Sukhova. He was killed before he could do that. I need to know what it was. And I think you may know the answer.”

“I’m afraid you were misled. No one on the staff knew what Boris was doing in Rome.”

“We know he had information, Miss Sukhova. Information that was too dangerous to publish here. Information about a threat of some sort. A threat to the West and Israel.”

She glanced through the open doorway into the dining room. “I suppose this evening was all staged for my benefit. You wanted to meet me somewhere you thought the FSB wouldn’t be listening and so you threw a party on my behalf and lured me here with promises of an exclusive story.” She placed her hand suggestively on his forearm and leaned close. Her voice, when she spoke again, was little more than a whisper. “You should know that the FSB is always listening, Mr. Golani. In fact, two of the guests your embassy invited here tonight are on the FSB payroll.”

She released his arm and moved away. Then her face brightened suddenly, like a lost child glimpsing her mother. Gabriel turned and saw the filmmaker advancing toward them, with two other guests in his wake. Cigarettes were ignited, drinks were fetched, and within a few moments they were all four conversing in rapid Russian as though Mr. Golani was not there. Gabriel was convinced he had overplayed his hand and that Olga was now forever lost to him, but as he turned to leave he felt her hand once more upon his arm.

“The answer is yes,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You asked whether I would be willing to give you a tour of Moscow tomorrow. And the answer is yes. Where are you staying?”

“At the Savoy.”

“It’s the most thoroughly bugged hotel in Moscow.” She smiled. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

She wanted to take him to a cemetery. To understand Russia today, she said, you must first know her past. And to know her past, you had to walk among her bones.

She telephoned the Savoy the first time at ten and suggested they meet at noon. A short time later she called again to say that, due to an unforeseen complication at the office, she would not be able to meet him until three. Gabriel, playing the role of Natan Golani, spent much of the day touring the Kremlin and the Tretyakov Gallery. Then, at 2:45, he stepped onto the escalator of the Lubyanka Metro station and rode it down into the warm Moscow earth. A train waited in the murky light of the platform; he stepped on board as the doors rattled closed and took hold of the overhead handrail as the carriage lurched forward. His FSB minder had managed to secure the only empty seat. He was fiddling with his iPod, symbol of the New Russian man, while an old babushka in a black headscarf looked on in bewilderment.

They rode six stops to Sportivnaya. The watcher emerged into the hazy sunlight first and went to the left. Gabriel turned to the right and entered a chaotic outdoor market of wobbly kiosks and trestle tables piled high with cheap goods from the former republics of central Asia. At the opposite end of the market a band of Unity Party Youth was chanting slogans and handing out election leaflets. One of them, a not-so-youthful man in his early thirties, was trailing a few steps behind Gabriel as he arrived at the entrance of the Novodevichy Cemetery.

On the other side of the gate stood a small redbrick flower shop. Olga Sukhova was waiting outside the doorway, a bouquet of carnations in her arms. “Your timing is impeccable, Mr. Golani.” She kissed Gabriel formally on both cheeks and smiled warmly. “Come with me. I think you’re going to find this fascinating.”