by Daniel Silva
“You should,” said Zhirov through the same condescending grin. “You see, Allon, what you are offering me is a choice between death and death.”
“I’m offering you a chance to see one more Russian sunrise, Pavel. And don’t worry,” Gabriel added. “I’ll make sure you have plenty of time in a nice quiet place to think up a good story to tell your masters at the SVR. Something tells me you’ll be all right in the end.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’m going to personally put a bullet in the back of your neck for killing Madeline.”
“I need some time to think.”
Gabriel reapplied the duct tape to Zhirov’s eyes and mouth.
“You have five minutes.”
As it turned out, ten minutes would elapse before Mikhail, Yaakov, and Oded carried Zhirov from the fallout shelter to the dining room, where they secured him tightly to a heavy chair. Gabriel was seated opposite; behind him stood Yossi, his eyes fixed on the display screen of a tripod-mounted video camera. After making a small adjustment to the angle of the shot, Yossi nodded to Mikhail, who ripped the tape from Zhirov’s eyes and mouth. The Russian blinked rapidly several times. Then his eyes swept slowly around the room, recording every face, every detail, before finally settling on the photograph in Gabriel’s hands. It showed Zhirov, looking very different than he did now, having lunch with Madeline Hart at Les Palmiers in Calvi.
“How did you meet her?” asked Gabriel.
“Meet who?” replied Zhirov.
Gabriel laid the photograph upon the table and told Yossi to shut off the camera.
They cut him away from the chair, tied a length of rope to his wrists, and carried him outside, to the shore of the lake. A dock stretched fifty feet into the darkness; and at the end was a patch of water that had yet to freeze. Zhirov entered it gracelessly, as a heavily bound man is prone to do when hurled by three angry men.
“Do you know the survival time for water like that?” asked Keller.
“He’ll start to lose feeling and dexterity in two minutes. And there’s a good chance he’ll be unconscious in about fifteen.”
“If he doesn’t drown first.”
“There’s always that,” said Gabriel.
Keller watched the thrashing figure in silence for a moment. “How will you know when he’s had enough?” he asked finally.
“When he starts to sink.”
“Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“These things happen in a place like Russia.”
52
TVER OBLAST, RUSSIA
Two minutes in the lake was all it took. After that, there were no more protestations of innocence, no more threats that the FSB would soon be riding to his rescue. Resigned to his fate, he became a model prisoner. He made only one request, that they do something about his appearance. Like most spies, he had spent his career avoiding cameras, and he didn’t want to make his star turn looking like the loser of a prizefight.
There is a truism about the intelligence trade: contrary to popular belief, most spies like to talk, especially when confronted with a situation that renders their career unsalvageable. At that point, they spill their secrets in a torrent, if only to prove to themselves that they had been more than simply a cog in the covert machine, that they had been important, even if they were not.
Therefore, it came as no surprise to Gabriel that Pavel Zhirov, after recovering from his plunge into the lake, was suddenly in a talkative mood. Dressed in dry clothing, warmed by sweetened tea and a bit of brandy, he began his account not with Madeline Hart but with himself. He had been a child of the nomenklatura, the Communist elite of the Soviet Union. His father had been a senior official at the Soviet Foreign Ministry under Andrei Gromyko, which meant that Zhirov had attended special schools reserved for the children of the elite and had been allowed to shop in special Party stores that contained luxury goods most Soviet citizens could only dream of. And then there was the almost unheard-of luxury of foreign travel. Zhirov had spent much of his childhood outside the Soviet Union—mainly in the Soviet vassal states of Eastern Europe, which was his father’s area of expertise, though he did spend six months in New York once when his father was working at the United Nations. He hated New York because, as a loyal child of the Party, he had been bred and educated to hate it. “We didn’t see the wealth and greed of the United States as something to be emulated,” he said. “We saw it as something we could use against the Americans to destroy them.”
Despite the fact he was an indifferent and oftentimes disruptive student, Zhirov won admission to the prestigious Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages. Upon graduation, it was assumed he would go to work at the Foreign Ministry. Instead, a recruiter from the Committee for State Security, better known as the KGB, came calling at the Zhirovs’ apartment in Moscow. The recruiter said the KGB had been watching Pavel since he was a child and believed he possessed all the attributes of a perfect spy.
“I was incredibly flattered,” Zhirov admitted. “It was 1975. Ford and Brezhnev were making nice in Helsinki, but behind the facade of détente the contest between East and West, capitalism and socialism, was still raging. And I was going to be a part of it.”
But first, he added quickly, he had to attend another institute: the Red Banner Institute, the KGB’s Moscow training center. There he learned the basics of KGB tradecraft. Mainly, though, he learned how to recruit spies, which, for the KGB, was an excruciatingly slow, tightly controlled process lasting a year or more. His training complete, he was assigned to the Fifth Department of the First Chief Directorate and posted to Brussels. Several other Western European postings followed, until it became clear to Zhirov’s superiors at Moscow Center that he had a flair for the darker side of the trade. He was transferred to Department S, the unit that oversaw Soviet agents living “illegally” abroad. Later, he worked for Department V, the KGB division that handled mokriye dela.
“Wet affairs,” said Gabriel.
Zhirov nodded. “I wasn’t a trigger man like you, Allon. I was an organizer and planner.”
“Did you ever run any false flag operations when you were at Department V?”
“We ran them all the time,” Zhirov admitted. “In fact, false flags were standard operating procedure. We almost never moved against a target unless we could create a plausible cover story that someone else was behind it.”
“How long were you at Department V?”
“Until the end.”
By that, he meant the end of the Soviet Union, which crumbled in December 1991. Almost overnight, the once-mighty superpower became fifteen separate countries, with Russia, the heart of the old union, the first among equals. The KGB was broken into two separate services. Before long, Moscow Center, once a cathedral of intelligence, fell on hard times. Cracks appeared in the exterior of the building, and the lobby was filled with uncollected trash. Unshaven officers in wrinkled clothing wandered the halls in an alcoholic daze.
“There wasn’t even toilet paper in the men’s room,” Zhirov said, disgust creeping into his voice. “The entire place was a pigsty. And no one was in charge.”
That changed, he said, when Boris Yeltsin finally exited the stage and the siloviki, men from the security services, took control of the Kremlin. Almost immediately, they ordered the SVR to increase operations against the United States and Great Britain, both nominal allies of the new Russian Federation. Zhirov was named the SVR’s new chief rezident in Washington, one of the most important posts in the service. But on the day he was supposed to depart Russia, he received a summons to the Kremlin. It seemed the president, an old colleague from the KGB, wanted a word.
“I assumed he wanted to give me some parting instructions about how to handle my job in Washington,” Zhirov said. “But as it turned out, he had other plans for me.”
“Volgatek,” said Gabriel.
Zhirov nodded. “Volgatek.”
To understand what happened next, Zhirov said, it was first necessary to under
stand the importance of oil to Russia. He reminded his audience that, for decades, the Soviet Union was the world’s second-largest oil producer, trailing only Saudi Arabia and the emirates of the American-dominated Persian Gulf. The oil shocks of the 1970s and ’80s had been a boon to the wobbly Soviet economy—they were like a respirator, said Zhirov, that prolonged the life of the patient long after the brain had ceased functioning. The new Russian president understood what Boris Yeltsin had not, that oil could turn Russia into a superpower again. So he showed the oligarchs like Viktor Orlov the door and brought the entire Russian energy sector under effective Kremlin control. And then he started an oil company of his own.
“KGB Oil and Gas,” said Gabriel.
“More or less,” agreed Zhirov, nodding slowly. “But our company was to be different. We were tasked with acquiring drilling rights and downstream assets outside Russia. And we were KGB from top to bottom. In fact, a substantial percentage of our profits now flow directly into the accounts at Yasenevo.”
“Where does the rest of it go?”
“Use your imagination.”
“Into the pockets of the Russian president?”
“He didn’t get to be Europe’s richest man by wisely investing his KGB pension. Our president is worth about forty billion dollars, and much of his wealth comes from Volgatek.”
“Whose idea was it to drill in the North Sea?”
“It was his,” replied Zhirov. “He took it very personally. He said he wanted Volgatek to stick a straw into British territorial waters and suck on it until there was nothing left. For the record,” he added, “I was against it from the beginning.”
“Why?”
“Part of my job as chief of security and operations was to survey the playing field before we made a move on an asset or a drilling contract. My assessment of the situation in Britain wasn’t promising. I predicted that the political tensions between London and Moscow would lead to a rejection of our application to drill off the Western Isles. And, regrettably, I was proven correct.”
“I take it the president was disappointed.”
“He was angrier than I’d ever seen him,” Zhirov said. “Mainly because he suspected Viktor Orlov had played a role in it. He called me into his Kremlin office and told me to use any and all means necessary to get that contract.”
“So you set your sights on Jeremy Fallon.”
Zhirov hesitated before responding. “You obviously have very good sources in London,” he said after a moment.
“Five million euros in a Swiss bank account,” said Gabriel. “That’s what you gave Jeremy Fallon to get the contract for
you.”
“He drove a hard bargain. Needless to say,” Zhirov added, “we were extremely disappointed when he failed to deliver. He said there was nothing he could do. Lancaster and the energy secretary were dead set against the deal. We had to do something to change the dynamic—shape the battlefield, if you will.”
“So you kidnapped the prime minister’s mistress.”
Zhirov made no reply.
“Say it,” said Gabriel, “or we’re going to take another moonlight swim.”
“Yes,” Zhirov said, looking directly into the camera, “I kidnapped the prime minister’s mistress.”
“How did you know Lancaster was having an affair with her?”
“The London rezidentura had been hearing rumors for some time about a young woman from Party headquarters coming to Downing Street late at night. I asked them to press a little harder on the issue. It didn’t take them long to figure out who she was.”
“Did Fallon know that you were planning to kidnap her?”
Zhirov shook his head. “I waited until after delivering Madeline’s confession before telling Fallon that we were behind it. I told him to use the opportunity to get the deal done. Otherwise, I was going to burn him, too.”
“By leaking the fact that he took a five-million-euro bribe from a Kremlin-owned Russian oil company.”
Zhirov nodded.
“When were you in contact with him?”
“I traveled to London while you and your little friend from Corsica were tearing up France looking for her. Lancaster was so incapacitated by stress he told Fallon to do whatever he wanted. Fallon pushed through the deal despite the objections of the energy secretary. Then I initiated the endgame.”
“The ransom demand,” said Gabriel. “Ten million euros, or the girl dies. And Fallon knew all along that it was nothing more than a charade designed to cover up Volgatek’s role in Madeline’s disappearance.”
“And his role, too,” Zhirov added.
“How much did Lancaster know?”
“Nothing,” Zhirov responded. “He still believes he paid ten million euros to save his mistress and his political career.”
“Why did you insist that I be the one to deliver the money?”
“We wanted to have a little fun at your expense.”
“By killing Madeline in front of me?”
Zhirov was silent.
“Say it for the cameras, Pavel. Admit that you killed Madeline.”
“I killed Madeline Hart,” he recited.
“How?”
“By placing her in the back of a Citroën with a gasoline bomb.”
“Why?” asked Gabriel. “Why did you kill her?”
“She had to die,” Zhirov said. “There was no way she could be allowed to return to England.”
“Why didn’t you kill me, too?”
“Trust me, Allon, nothing would have made us happier. But we thought you were more useful alive than dead. After all, who better to authenticate that Madeline had been killed as part of a garden-variety kidnap-for-ransom scheme than the great Gabriel Allon?”
“Where’s the ten million euros?”
“I gave it to the Russian president as a gift.”
“I’d like it back.”
“Good luck with that.”
Gabriel placed the photograph of the luncheon at Les Palmiers on the table again.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“I suppose you could call it the final stages of a romantic recruitment.”
Gabriel gave a skeptical frown. “Why would a beautiful young girl like Madeline be interested in a creep like you?”
“I’m good at my job, Allon. Just like you. Besides,” Zhirov added, “she was a lonely girl. She was easy.”
“Watch yourself, Pavel.” Gabriel made a show of scrutinizing the photograph more carefully. “It’s funny,” he said after a moment, “but the two of you look very comfortable together.”
“It was our third meeting.”
“Meeting?”
“Date,” Zhirov said, correcting himself.
“It doesn’t look to me as though you’re having a good time,” said Gabriel, still staring at the photo. “In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were quarreling.”
“We weren’t,” Zhirov said quickly.
“You sure about that?”
“I’m sure.”
Gabriel wordlessly set aside the photograph.
“Any more questions?” asked Zhirov.
“Just one,” said Gabriel. “How did you know Madeline was having an affair with Jonathan Lancaster?”
“I’ve already answered that question.”
“I know,” said Gabriel. “But this time, I want you to tell me the truth.”
He offered up the same explanation—the one about rumors reaching the ears of the SVR rezident in London—but Gabriel was having none of it. He gave Zhirov one more chance; then, when told the same lie, he marched the Russian out to the end of the dock and pressed the barrel of a Makarov against the nape of his neck. And there, at the edge of the frozen lake with no name, the truth came spilling out. A part of Gabriel had suspected it all along. Even so, he could scarcely believe the story Zhirov told. But it had to be true, he thought. In fact, it was the only possible explanation for all that had happened.
Back inside the dacha,
Zhirov recited the story again, this time for the video camera, before being returned, bound and gagged, to the fallout shelter. The operation was now almost complete. They had obtained proof that Volgatek had bribed and blackmailed its way into the lucrative North Sea oil market. All they had to do now was make their way to the airport and board their separate flights home. Or, suggested Gabriel, they could postpone their departure to conduct one last piece of business. It was not a decision he could make alone so, uncharacteristically, he put it to a vote. There were no dissenters.
53
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Gabriel decided it was safer to take the train. There was a station in the town of Okulovka; he could catch the first local of the morning and be in St. Petersburg by early afternoon. Privately, he was relieved when Eli Lavon insisted on coming with him. He needed Lavon’s eyes. And he needed his Russian, too.
It was only forty miles to Okulovka, but the dreadful roads and weather stretched the trip to nearly two hours. They left the Volvo SUV in a small windblown car park and hurried into the station, a newly built redbrick structure that looked oddly like a factory. The train was already boarding by the time Lavon managed to secure a pair of first-class tickets from one of the surly glass-enclosed agents. They shared a compartment with two Russian girls who chattered without pause and a thin elegantly dressed businessman who never once looked up from his phone. Lavon passed the time by reading the morning papers from Moscow, which contained no mention of a missing oil executive. Gabriel stared out the frosted window at the endless fields of snow until the swaying of the carriage lulled him into something like sleep.
He woke with a start as the train rattled into St. Petersburg’s Moskovsky Station. Upstairs the great vaulted hall was in turmoil; it seemed the afternoon bullet train to Moscow had been delayed by a Chechen bomb threat. Trailed by Lavon, Gabriel picked his way through the sobbing children and quarreling couples and headed into Vosstaniya Square. The Hero City Obelisk rose skyward from the center of the swirling traffic circle, its golden star tarnished by the falling snow. Streetlamps burned up and down the length of Nevsky Prospekt. It was only two in the afternoon, but whatever daylight there had been was long gone.