Daniel Silva: Moscow Rules

He spun round and looked at Elena. She was desperately trying to pull her wrists through her handcuffs, her mouth wide in a silent scream. Gabriel wanted to comfort her but could not; Arkady Medvedev was still alive and was struggling to get the Stechkin out of the front of his trousers. Gabriel kicked the gun out of Medvedev’s hands and stood over him. The Russian began to pant, pink blood frothing at the side of his mouth.

“I’d like you to give Ivan a message,” Gabriel said. “Will you do that for me, Arkady?”

Medvedev nodded, his breathing rapid and shallow. Gabriel raised the Makarov and fired his last three shots into the Russian’s face. Message delivered.

Gabriel held Elena tightly while Bulganov searched the bodies for a key to the handcuffs. He found one, a universal, on Luka Osipov. He freed Elena’s hands first, then removed the cuffs from Gabriel’s hands.

“Take her out to the car,” Gabriel said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Be quick about it.”

“Just go.”

As Bulganov led Elena toward the door, Gabriel searched the corpse of Arkady Medvedev. He found keys, passports, and a wallet filled with cash. He ignored the money and removed a single item: a plastic card embossed with the image of a large apartment house on the banks of the Moscow River.

Bulganov had the Volga ’s engine running by the time Gabriel stepped outside. He climbed into the back next to Elena, whose screams were no longer silent. Gabriel held her tightly to his chest as Bulganov drove away.

Her wailing had ceased by the time they saw the sign. It stood at the intersection of two dreadful roads, rusted, crooked, and pierced by bullet holes. Two arrows pointed in opposite directions. To the left was MOCKBA, the Cyrillic spelling of Moscow. Bulganov explained what lay to the right.

“ Ukraine.”

“How long?”

“We can be over the border before dawn.”

“We?”

“I just helped an Israeli agent kill Arkady Medvedev and five of his security men. How long do you think I’ll live if I stay in Moscow? A week, if I’m lucky. I’m coming with you.”

“Another defector? That’s all we need.”

“I suspect you’ll find I’m worth my weight in gold. You see, I’ve been privately investigating the ties between men like Ivan Kharkov and the FSB for years. I also know a great deal about Ivan’s little arms-trafficking network. Much more than you, I suspect. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to come with you, Allon?”

“We’d love the company, Colonel. Besides, it’s a long drive and I don’t have a clue how to get out of here.”

Bulganov let his foot off the brake and started to turn to the right. Gabriel told him to stop.

“What’s the problem?” Bulganov asked.

“You’re going the wrong way.”

“We’re going to Ukraine. And Ukraine is to the right. Look at the sign.”

“We have a couple of errands to run before we leave.”

“Where?”

Gabriel pointed to the left.

MOCKBA …

On the outskirts of Moscow was a supermarket that never closed. If it was not the world’s largest supermarket, thought Gabriel, then it was surely a close second: two acres of frozen foods, a mile of cookies and crackers, another mile of American soft drinks, one nightmarish wall hung with thousands of pork sausages. And that was just the food. At the far end of the market was a section called Home and Garden, where one could buy everything from clothing to motorcycles to lawn tractors. Who in Moscow needed a lawn tractor? thought Gabriel. Who in Moscow even had a lawn? “They’re for the dachas, ” Elena explained. “Now that Russians have money, they don’t like to dig with their hands anymore.” She shrugged. “But what’s the point of having a dacha if you don’t get your hands dirty?”

Why the market remained open all night was a mystery because at 2 A.M. it was deserted. They walked the endless prospekts of consumer goods, quickly pulling items from the shelves: clean clothing, bandages and antiseptic, a pair of large sunglasses, enough snack food and cola to fuel an early-morning road trip. When they wheeled their cart up to the checkout stand, the drowsy female clerk looked at Gabriel’s eye and winced. Elena contemptuously explained that her “husband” had crashed his car in a ditch-drunk out of his mind on vodka, of course. The checkout woman shook her head sadly as she rang up the items. “Russian men,” she muttered. “They never change.”

Gabriel carried the bags out to the car and climbed into the back again with Elena. Bulganov, alone in the front, told them a story as he drove toward central Moscow. It was the story of a young KGB officer who never truly believed the lies of Lenin and Stalin and who had quietly raised a glass of vodka when the empire of deception finally fell. This young officer had tried to resign after the collapse of communism but had been convinced by his mentor to stay on and help turn the KGB into a truly professional service. He had reluctantly agreed and had quickly risen through the ranks of the KGB’s domestic successor, the FSB, only to see it deteriorate into something worse than the KGB had been. This young man, at great personal risk, had then joined forces with a group of officers who hoped to reform the FSB. Quietly, said Bulganov. From the inside. But they soon realized that the top brass and their masters in the Kremlin were not interested in reform. So the group went underground. And started building a dossier.

“Our dossier does not paint a pretty picture. FSB involvement in murder for hire, prostitution, and narcotics. FSB involvement in the operations of shady oligarchs. And worse. Who do you think planned and carried out those apartment house bombings that our president used to justify going back into Chechnya? My service is a criminal enterprise from top to bottom. And it is running Russia.”

“How did I end up on your plate that night in Lubyanka?”

“Ironically, it was all by the book. We were watching you from the moment you hit the ground in St. Petersburg. And I must admit, you were quite good. We had no suspicions, even after you initiated contact with Olga Sukhova. We thought you were Natan Golani of the Israeli Ministry of Culture.”

“So you didn’t know Arkady and Ivan were going to have us killed that night?”

“No, not at all. At first, I thought you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when you survived the attack and saved Olga, that caused Ivan a serious problem. I almost lost you during your detention in Lubyanka. Ivan Kharkov himself was on the phone to the chief. He knew your real name and your real job. He wanted you taken out into a field and shot. The top floor ordered me to do just that. I pretended to go along and started stalling for time. Then, thankfully, your service made such a stink, you became too hot, even for the likes of Ivan Kharkov.”

“How did you convince them not to kill me?”

“I told them that it would be a public-relations disaster if you died in FSB custody. I told them I didn’t care what Ivan did to you once you left the country, but they couldn’t lay a hand on you while you were on Russian soil. Ivan wasn’t happy, but the top floor finally came around to my way of thinking. I put you in the van and got you to the border before they could change their minds. You came very close to dying that night, Allon-closer than you’ll ever realize.”

“Where’s the dossier now?”

“Most of it’s up here,” he said, tapping the side of his forehead. “Whatever documentation we could copy was scanned and stored in e-mail accounts outside the country.”

“How did you end up in that warehouse tonight?”