by Daniel Silva
Gabriel held up a photograph of Katerina standing on Quinn’s balcony in Lisbon. Nazari nodded.
“What was her role in the operation?”
“I wasn’t privy to all the details. At that point, I was just the conduit to Quinn.”
“How much was he paid?”
“Ten million.”
“In advance?”
“On completion of the assignment.”
“My death?”
Nazari glanced at Keller and said, “His, too.”
Which brought them back to Copenhagen. Alexei Rozanov was on edge that night, but excited. The first target had been chosen. All Rozanov needed was someone to whisper Quinn’s name into the ear of Israeli and British intelligence. He asked Nazari to be his messenger, and Nazari promptly turned him down.
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to do anything that might endanger my position with Mr. Taylor.”
“What changed your mind?”
Nazari was silent.
“How much did he pay you, Reza?”
“Two million.”
“Where’s the money?”
“He wanted to deposit it in a Moscow bank, but I insisted on Switzerland.”
Gabriel asked Nazari for the name of the bank, the account number, and any passwords. Nazari supplied the information. The bank was in Geneva. Recently, the Office had found it necessary to examine the institution’s balance sheet. Getting access to Nazari’s funds wouldn’t pose much of a challenge.
“I don’t suppose you mentioned any of this to Mohsen Esfahani.”
“No,” Nazari answered after a moment’s hesitation. “Mohsen knows nothing.”
“And your wife?” asked Gabriel. “Did you mention it to her?”
“Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Because I’m curious by nature.”
“No,” said Nazari, again after a hesitation. “My wife knows nothing.”
“Maybe you should tell her.”
Gabriel accepted a mobile phone from Mikhail and offered it to Nazari. The Iranian stared at the device, uncomprehending.
“Go ahead, Reza. Call her.”
“What have you done?”
“We’ve pulled the fire alarm.”
“What does that mean?”
It was Yaakov who explained. “Do you remember the bolt-hole we created for you and your family, Reza? The bolt-hole that wasn’t necessary because you were never the real thing?”
Panic spread like wildfire across the Iranian’s face.
“But you never mentioned any of that to your wife,” Yaakov continued. “In fact, you left the bolt-hole in place, just in case things went sideways for you at VEVAK and you needed a port in the storm. All we had to do was pull the fire alarm and they—”
“Where are they?” Nazari interrupted.
“I can tell you where they aren’t, Reza, and that’s the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
A dangerous calm settled into Nazari’s sunken eyes. They moved slowly from Yaakov to Gabriel.
“You just made a mistake, my friend. A man such as yourself knows well the hazards in targeting innocent family members.”
“That’s one of the great things about being dead, Reza. I’m no longer bound by a guilty conscience.” Gabriel paused, then added, “It clarifies my thinking.” He withdrew the mobile phone. “The question is,” he asked, “have I clarified your thinking, too?”
Nazari’s gaze moved from Gabriel’s face to the fire. The dangerous calm was gone. It had been replaced by hopelessness, a realization he had no choice but to place himself at the mercy of a mortal enemy.
“What do you want from me?” he asked finally.
“I want you to save your family. And yourself.”
“And how might I do that?”
“By helping me find Eamon Quinn and Alexei Rozanov.”
“It’s not possible, Allon.”
“Says who?”
“Says the Boss.”
“I’m the boss now,” said Gabriel. “And you’re working for me.”
They spent the next hour going over everything again from the beginning. Particular attention was paid to the details of the bank account in Geneva and the circumstances of Nazari’s last meeting with Alexei Rozanov in Copenhagen. The precise date, the name of the restaurant, the time and manner of their arrival, the names of the hotels where they had stayed.
“And your next meeting?” asked Gabriel.
“We have nothing planned.”
“Who usually initiates contact?”
“That depends on the state of play. If Alexei has something to discuss, he makes contact and suggests a venue. And if I need to see him—”
“How do you make contact with him?”
“In a way that you and the NSA can’t monitor.”
“You drop a chatty e-mail to a harmless-looking account?”
“Sometimes,” said Nazari, “the simple ways are best.”
“What’s Rozanov’s address?”
“He uses several.”
Nazari then recited four addresses from memory. They were all random combinations of letters and numerals. It was an impressive feat of recall.
By then, it was approaching eleven. There was just enough time to return Nazari to the InterContinental by his deadline. Gabriel warned the Iranian of the consequences of any breach of their hastily drawn contract. Then he cut him loose from the chair. Nazari looked surprisingly well for a man who had been subjected to a thrashing and a mock execution. The only visible evidence of his ordeal was the small burn in the center of his forehead. “Put some ice on it when you get back to your room,” said Yaakov as he shoved Nazari into the car. “We want you to look your best for the negotiations tomorrow.”
They dropped him at the eastern edge of the Stadtpark, and Mikhail trailed him back to the hotel. The lobby was deserted; Nazari boarded an elevator alone and rode it to the seventh floor, where his compromised room awaited him. Hunched over a laptop computer in the room next door, Eli Lavon listened to what came next. A man being violently sick into the toilet, a man weeping uncontrollably after a phone call to his home in Tehran went unanswered. Lavon lowered the volume and gave his quarry a modicum of privacy. Big boys’ games, he was thinking. Big boys’ rules.
44
SPARROW HILLS, MOSCOW
KATERINA AKULOVA’S DREAM UNFOLDED THE way it always did. She was walking through a birch forest near her old training camp when the trees parted like a curtain and a lake of crystalline blue appeared. She had no need to disrobe; in her dreams she was always unclothed, no matter the situation. She slid beneath the calm flat surface and swam through the streets of her ersatz German village. Then the water turned to blood, and she realized she was drowning in it. Starved of oxygen, her heart banging against her ribs, she kicked wildly toward a pinprick of light. But each time she breached the surface, a hand pushed her down again. It was a woman’s hand, smooth, flawless. Though Katerina had never felt its touch, she knew it to be the hand of her mother.
Finally, she sat upright in bed, gasping for air as though she had not drawn a breath in several minutes. Her hair was damp and limp, her hands were shaking with fear. She reached out for her cigarettes, lit one with difficulty, and drew the smoke deeply into her lungs. The nicotine calmed her, as it always did. She looked at the clock and saw it was approaching noon. Somehow, she’d slept nearly twelve hours. Outside, the previous night’s snow had moved on and a white disk of a sun blazed low in the pale sky. Moscow, it seemed, had been granted a few hours’ reprieve from winter.
She swung her feet to the floor, padded into the kitchen, and brewed a cup of coffee in the automatic maker. She drank it while standing over the machine and immediately prepared another. Her SVR-issue mobile phone was lying on the counter. She picked it up and frowned at the screen. There was still no departure order from Alexei. She was convinced it was not oversight on Alexei’s part. Alexei had his reasons. He always did.
She ch
ecked the weather forecast. It was a few degrees above freezing, rare for Moscow at that time of year, and the clouds were expected to stay away for the remainder of the afternoon. It had been a long time since she’d had any exercise, and she decided a run would do her good. She carried her coffee into the bedroom and dressed: a base layer top and bottom, a cold-weather tracksuit, a pair of new running shoes—genuine American shoes, not the cheap, threadbare knockoffs that came out of Russian factories. Better to run barefoot than in Russian trainers. Next she pulled on a pair of heavy gloves and stuffed her hair beneath a woolen cap. All that remained was her gun, a Makarov 9mm that she hated to carry when she was running. Besides, if some vodka-soaked pervert were foolish enough to try something, she was more than capable of looking after herself. She had once beaten a groper unconscious on the footpaths of Gorky Park. Alexei had finished the job—at least that was the rumor at Moscow Center. Katerina had never bothered to inquire about the man’s fate. He had deserved it, whatever it was.
She stretched for a few minutes while smoking her second cigarette and drinking her third cup of black coffee. Then she rode the elevator down to the lobby and, ignoring the hungover greeting of the unshaven concierge, stepped into the street. The pavements had been cleared of snow; she set out at an easy pace westward to Michurinsky Prospekt. It bordered Moscow State University, the school Katerina might have attended if she had been a normal child and not the daughter of a KGB officer who’d forgotten to take her birth control while setting a honey trap.
At the bottom of the hill she turned right onto the gentle sweep of Kosygina Street. In the median was a paved footpath lined on both sides by bare-limbed trees. Her legs were beginning to warm; she could feel the first beads of perspiration forming beneath her jacket. She lengthened her stride, increased her pace. She passed a pretty green-and-white church and the Sparrow Hills observation point, where two smiling newlyweds were posed for photographs against the backdrop of the city. It was a tradition for Russian couples, one that Katerina would never experience. In the unlikely event she were to marry, the SVR would have to approve of her spouse. The wedding would take place in secret, and no photographers would be present. No family, either. Not a problem for Katerina, for she had none.
It was her intention to run to the Russian Academy of Sciences and then start toward home along the embankment of the Moscow River. But as she was passing the garish entrance of the Korston Hotel, she became aware of the fact that she was being followed by a Range Rover with blacked-out windows. She had seen it for the first time on Michurinsky Prospekt and a second time at the Sparrow Hills observation point, where one of the occupants, a man in a leather jacket, had been pretending to admire the view. Now the vehicle was parked outside the Korston, and the man in the leather jacket was walking toward Katerina through the trees. He was over six feet tall, well over two hundred pounds, and walked with the rolling arm-swinging stride of a man who spent a great deal of time in the gym.
It went against Katerina’s training to turn her back to a potential threat, so she continued toward the man at the same pace, her eyes straight ahead, as though only vaguely aware of his presence. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his leather coat. As she tried to pass, he removed one, his right, and grabbed her by the bicep. It was like being seized by the claw of a mechanical digger. Her feet skidded from beneath her. She would have fallen to the pavement if the hand had not kept her upright.
“Let go!” she snapped.
“Nyet,” he said coldly.
She tried to pull away, more as a warning than a true attempt to escape, but he tightened his grip further still. Her next moves flowed by instinct. She stamped hard on the instep of his right foot and blinded him with a stiletto-like finger to each eye. As his grip relaxed, she pivoted and raised a knee into his groin. Then she pivoted again and delivered a vicious elbow to the temple that dropped him to the ground. She was preparing to do permanent damage to his exposed throat but stopped when she heard laughter on the path behind her. She placed her hands on her knees and fought hard for breath in the frigid air. Her mouth tasted of blood. She imagined it was the blood of her dreams.
“Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to make sure you were ready to go back into the field.”
“I’m always ready.”
“You made that quite obvious.” Alexei Rozanov shook his head slowly. “That poor devil will never need to bother with a condom again. I suppose he’s lucky in a way.”
They were in the back of Rozanov’s SVR car, which was stuck in traffic along Kosygina Street. Apparently, there was an accident somewhere ahead. There usually was.
“Who was he?” Katerina asked.
“The young man you nearly killed?”
She nodded.
“He’s a recent graduate of the Red Banner Institute. Until today, I had high hopes for him.”
“What were you planning to use him for?”
“Muscle work,” said Rozanov without a trace of irony.
The car crept forward at a walking pace. Rozanov withdrew his packet of Dunhills from the breast pocket of his overcoat and extracted one thoughtfully.
“When you return to your apartment,” he said after a moment, “you’ll find a suitcase waiting in the entrance hall, along with a passport and your travel documents. You leave first thing in the morning.”
“For where?”
“You’ll spend one night in Warsaw to establish your identity. Then you’ll make your way across Europe to Rotterdam. We’ve booked a room for you at a hotel near the ferry terminal. A car will be waiting for you on the other side.”
“What kind of car?”
“A Renault. The key will be concealed in the usual place. The weapons will be hidden in the back. We got you a Skorpion.” Rozanov smiled. “You always liked the Skorpion, didn’t you, Katerina?”
“What about Quinn?” she asked.
“He’ll meet you at your hotel.” Rozanov paused, then added, “I wouldn’t expect him to be in a good mood.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The president has decided to withhold payment of Quinn’s money until he completes the second phase of the operation.”
“Why would the president do something like that?”
“To provide Quinn with an incentive,” answered Rozanov. “Our Irish friend has a long history of taking matters into his own hands. That text message he insisted on sending to Allon almost destroyed a perfectly planned operation.”
“You should never have given him Allon’s number.”
“I had no choice. Quinn was very specific in his demands. He wanted Allon to know there was a bomb in that car. And he wanted him to know who put it there.”
They had managed to inch their way back to the Sparrow Hills observation point. The newlyweds were gone; a new couple had taken their place. Posed with them was a child, a girl of six or seven in a white dress, with flowers in her hair.
“Pretty girl,” said Rozanov.
“Yes,” said Katerina distantly.
Rozanov scrutinized her for a moment. “Is it my imagination,” he asked at last, “or are you reluctant to return to the field?”
“It’s your imagination, Alexei.”
“Because if you’re not capable of performing your duties, I need to know.”
“Ask your new castrati whether I’m capable.”
“I know you were—”
“It’s not a problem,” she said, cutting him off.
“I was hoping that would be your answer.”
“You knew it would be.”
They had arrived at the source of the traffic jam. It was an old babushka lying dead in the street. Her drawstring avoska lay next to her; apples were scattered across the asphalt. A few car horns sounded in protest. New or old, it didn’t matter. Life was cheap in Russia.
“My God,” said Rozanov softly as the old woman’s smashed body slid past his window.
“It’s not like you to be upset by the sight o
f a little blood.”
“I’m not like you, Katerina. I kill with a pen and paper.”
“So do I, if there’s nothing else available.”
Rozanov smiled. “It’s good to know you still have your sense of humor.”
“One has to have a sense of humor in this line of work.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Rozanov drew a file folder from his attaché case.
“What’s that?”
“The president has one more job he’d like you to handle before you return to Russia.”
Katerina accepted the file and stared at the photograph on the first page. New or old, she thought, it didn’t matter. Life was cheap in Russia. Hers included.
45
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
I’M SORRY,” SAID LARS MORTENSEN, “but I didn’t catch your name.”
“Merchant,” replied Christopher Keller.
“Israeli, are you?”
“Afraid so.”
“And the accent?”
“Born in London.”
“I see.”
Mortensen was the chief of the PET, Denmark’s small but efficient internal security and intelligence service. Officially, it was a branch of the Danish national police and operated under the authority of the Ministry of Justice. Its headquarters was located in an anonymous office north of the Tivoli Gardens. Mortensen’s office was on the top floor. Its furnishings were solid, pale, and Danish. So was Mortensen.
“As you might expect,” Mortensen was saying, “Allon’s death came as a terrible shock to me. I considered him a friend. We worked together on a case a few years back. Things went bad in a house up north. I took care of it for him.”
“I remember.”
“You worked on that case, too?”
“No.”
Mortensen tapped the tip of a silver pen against the contents of an open file. “Allon struck me as the sort of man who would be difficult to kill. It’s hard to imagine he’s really gone.”
“We feel the same way.”
“And this request of yours—it has something to do with Allon’s death?”
“I’d rather not say.”