Gabriel Allon: Prince of Fire, the Messenger, the Secret Servant

by Daniel Silva

  “If we’re going to find out whether Ivan has really made a deal with al-Qaeda, we have to get inside his network. And to get inside Ivan’s network, we need the name of your original source.”

  “You can’t have it, Mr. Golani. Two people are already dead. I’m afraid the matter is closed.” She looked down at her menu. “We should eat something, Mr. Golani. It’s better if the FSB thinks we’re actually hungry.”

  For the remainder of dinner, Olga did not mention Ivan Kharkov and his missiles. Instead, she spoke of books recently read, films recently viewed, and the coming election. When the check came, they engaged in a playful tussle, male chivalry versus Russian hospitality, and chivalry prevailed. It was still light out; they walked directly to her car, arm in arm for the benefit of any spectators. The old Lada wouldn’t turn over at first, but it finally rattled into life with a puff of silver-blue smoke. “Built by the finest Soviet craftsmen during the last years of developed socialism,” she said. “At least we don’t have to remove our wipers anymore.”

  She turned up the radio very loud and embraced him without passion. “Would you be so kind as to see me to my door, Mr. Golani? I’m afraid my building isn’t as safe as it once was.”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  “It’s not far from here. Ten minutes at most. There’s a Metro stop nearby. You can—”

  Gabriel placed a finger to her lips and told her to drive.

  16

  MOSCOW

  It is said that Moscow is not truly a city but a collection of villages. This was one of them, thought Gabriel, as he walked at Olga’s side. And it was a village with serious problems. Here a band of alcoholics swilling beer and tots of vodka. Here a pack of drug addicts sharing a pipe and a tube of glue. Here a squadron of skateboard punks terrorizing a trio of old babushkas out for an evening stroll. Presiding over it all was an immense portrait of the Russian president with his arm raised in the fashion of Lenin. Across the top, in red lettering, was the Party’s ubiquitous slogan: FORWARD AS ONE!

  Her building was known as K-9, but the local English-speaking wits called it the House of Dogs. Built in the footprint of an H, it had thirty-two floors, six entrances, and a large transmission tower on the roof with blinking red warning lights. An identical twin stood on one side, an ugly stepsister on the other. It was not a home, thought Gabriel, but a storage facility for people.

  “Which doorway is yours?”

  "Entrance C.”

  “Pick another.”

  "But I always go through C.”

  “That’s why I want you to pick another.”

  They entered through a doorway marked B and struck out down a long corridor with a cracked linoleum floor. Every other light was out, and from behind the closed doors came the sounds and odors of too many people living too closely together. Arriving at the elevators, Olga stabbed at the call button and gazed at the ceiling. A minute elapsed. Then another.

  “It’s not working.”

  “How often does it break down?”

  “Once a week. Sometimes twice.”

  “What floor do you live on?”

  “The eleventh.”

  “Where are the stairs?”

  With a glance, she indicated around the corner. Gabriel led her into a dimly lit stairwell that smelled of stale beer, urine, and vaguely of disinfectant. “I’m afraid progress has come slowly to Russian stair-wells, ” she said. “Believe it or not, it used to be much worse.”

  Gabriel mounted the first step and started upward, with Olga at his heels. For the first four floors, they were alone, but on the fifth they encountered two girls sharing a cigarette and on the seventh two boys sharing a syringe. On the eighth-floor landing, Gabriel had to slow for a moment to scrape a condom from the bottom of his shoe, and on the tenth he walked through shards of broken glass.

  By the time they reached the eleventh-floor landing, Olga was breathing heavily. Gabriel reached out for the latch, but before he could touch it, the door flew away from him as though it had been hurled open by a blast wave. He pushed Olga into the corner and managed to step clear of the threshold as the first rounds tore the dank air. Olga began to scream but Gabriel scarcely noticed. He was now pressed against the wall of the stairwell. He felt no fear, only a sense of profounddisappointment. Someone was about to die. And it wasn’t going to be him.

  The gun was a P-9 Gurza with a suppressor screwed into the barrel. It was a professional’s weapon, though the same could not be said for the dolt who was wielding it.

  Perhaps it was overconfidence on the part of the assassin, Gabriel would think later, or perhaps the men who had hired him had neglected to point out that one of the targets was a professional himself. Whatever the case, the gunman blundered through the doorway with the weapon exposed in his outstretched hands. Gabriel seized hold of it and pointed it safely toward the ceiling as he drove the man against the wall. The gun discharged harmlessly twice before Gabriel was able to deliver two vicious knees to the gunman’s groin, followed by a crushing elbow to the temple. Though the final blow was almost certainly lethal, Gabriel left nothing to chance. After prying the Gurza from the gunman’s now-limp hand, he fired two shots into his skull, the ultimate professional insult.

  Amateurs, he knew from experience, tended to kill in pairs, which explained his rather calm reaction to the sound of crackling glass rising up the stairwell. He pulled Olga out of the line of fire and was standing at the top of the stairs as the second man came round the corner. Gabriel put him down as if he were a target on a training range: three tightly grouped shots to the center of the body, one to the head for style points.

  He stood motionless for a few seconds, until he was certain there were no more assassins, then turned around. Olga was cowering on the floor, next to the first man Gabriel had killed. Like the one at the bottom of the stairs, his head was covered by a black balaclava. Gabriel tore it off, revealing a lifeless face with a dark beard.

  “He’s Chechen,” Olga said.

  “You’re sure?”

  Before Olga could answer, she leaned over the edge of the stairs and was violently sick. Gabriel held her hand as she convulsed. In the distance, he could hear the first sirens of the police.

  “They’ll be here any minute, Olga. We’re never going to see each other again. You must give me the name. Tell me your source before it’s too late.”

  17

  MOSCOW

  The first officers to arrive were members of a Moscow City Militia public security unit, the proletariat of the city’s vast police and intelligence apparatus. The ranking officer was a stubblechinned sergeant who spoke only Russian. He took a brief statement from Olga, whom he appeared to know by reputation, then turned his attention to the dead gunmen. “Chechen gangsters,” he declared with disgust. He gathered a few more facts, including the name and nationality of Miss Sukhova’s foreign friend, and radioed the information to headquarters. At the end of the call, he ordered his colleagues not to disturb the scene and confiscated Gabriel’s diplomatic passport, hardly an encouraging sign.

  The next officers to appear were members of the GUOP, the special unit that handles cases related to organized crime and contract killings, one of Moscow’s most lucrative industries. The team leader wore blue jeans, a black leather jacket, and a pair of wraparound sunglasses backward on his shaved head. He called himself Markov. No rank. No first name. Just Markov. Gabriel instantly recognized the type. Markov was the sort who walked the delicate line between criminal and cop. He could have gone either way, and, at various times during his career, he probably had.

  He examined the corpses and agreed with the sergeant’s findings that they were probably Chechen contract killers. But unlike the younger man, he spoke a bit of English. His first questions were directed not at the famous reporter from the Gazeta but at Gabriel. He seemed most interested in hearing how a middle-aged Israeli diplomat from the Ministry of Culture had managed to disarm a professional assassin, shoot him twice in the h
ead, and then kill his partner. Listening to Gabriel’s account, his expression was one of open skepticism. He scrutinized Gabriel’s passport carefully, then slipped it into his coat pocket and said they would have to continue this conversation at headquarters.

  “I must protest,” Gabriel said.

  “I understand,” said Markov sadly.

  For reasons never made clear, Gabriel was handcuffed and taken by unmarked car to a busy Militia headquarters. There, he was led into the central processing area and placed on a wooden bench, next to a weathered man in his sixties who had been roughed up and robbed by street toughs. An hour passed; Gabriel finally walked over to the duty officer and asked for permission to phone his embassy. The duty officer translated Gabriel’s request to his colleagues, who immediately erupted into uproarious laughter. “They want money,” the elderly man said when Gabriel returned to the bench. “You cannot leave until you pay them what they want.” Gabriel managed a brief smile. If only it were that simple.

  Shortly after 1 A.M., Markov reappeared. He ordered Gabriel to stand, removed the handcuffs, and led him into an interrogation room. Gabriel’s possessions—his billfold, diplomatic passport, wristwatch, and mobile—were laid out neatly on a table. Markov picked up the phone and made a show of calling up the directory of recent calls.

  “You dialed your embassy before the first Militia officers arrived.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What did you say to them?”

  “That I had been attacked and that the police were going to be involved.”

  “You didn’t mention this when I questioned you at the apartment house.”

  “It’s standard procedure to contact the embassy immediately in a situation like this.”

  “Are you often in situations like this?”

  Gabriel ignored the question. “I am a diplomat of the State of Israel, entitled to every and all diplomatic protection and immunity. I assume an officer of your rank and position would realize that my first responsibility is to contact my embassy and report what has transpired.”

  “Did you report that you killed two men?”

  “No.”

  “Did this detail slip your mind? Or did you neglect to tell them this for other reasons?”

  “We are instructed to keep telephone communications brief in all situations. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Who’s we, Mr. Golani?”

  “The ministry.”

  “I see.”

  Gabriel thought he could see a trace of a smile.

  “I want to see a representative of my embassy immediately.”

  “Unfortunately, due to the special circumstances of your case, we’re going to have to detain you a little longer.”

  Gabriel focused on a single word: detain.

  “What special circumstances?”

  Markov led Gabriel silently out of the room. This time, he was locked in a fetid holding cell with a pair of bloodied drunks and three anorexic prostitutes, one of whom immediately propositioned him. Gabriel found a relatively clean spot along one wall and lowered himself cautiously to the concrete floor. “You have to pay them,” the prostitute explained. “Consider yourself lucky. I have to give them something else.”

  Several hours crawled past with no more contact from Markov— precisely how many Gabriel did not know, because he had no watch and there was no clock visible from the holding cell. The drunks passed the time debating Pushkin; the three prostitutes slept against the opposite wall, one leaning against the next, like dress-up dolls on a little girl’s shelf. Gabriel sat with his arms wrapped around his shins and his forehead to his knees. He shut out the sounds around him—the slamming of doors, the shouting of orders, the cries of a man being beaten—and kept his thoughts focused only on Olga Sukhova. Was she somewhere in this building with him, he wondered, or had she been taken elsewhere due to the “special circumstances” of her case? Was she even alive or had she suffered the same fate as her colleagues Aleksandr Lubin and Boris Ostrovsky? As for the name Olga had spoken to him in the stairwell of the House of Dogs, he pushed it to a far corner of his memory and concealed it beneath a layer of gesso and base paint.

  “It was Elena . . . Elena was the one who told me about the sale.”

  Elena who? Gabriel thought now. Elena where? Elena nobody . . .

  Finally, one sound managed to penetrate his defenses: the sound of Markov’s approaching footsteps. The grim expression on his face suggested an ominous turn in events.

  “Responsibility for your case has been transferred to another department. ”

  “Which department is that?”

  “Get on your feet, then face the wall and place your hands behind your back.”

  “You’re not going to shoot me here in front of all these witnesses, are you, Markov?”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Gabriel did as instructed. A pair of uniformed officers entered the cell, reattached the handcuffs, and led him outside to a waiting car. It sped through a maze of side streets before finally turning onto a broad, empty prospekt. Gabriel’s destination now lay directly ahead, a floodlit fortress of yellow stone looming atop the low hill. Elena who? he thought. Elena where? Elena nobody . . .

  18

  FSB HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW

  The iron gates of Lubyanka swung slowly open to receive him. In the center of a large interior courtyard, four bored-looking officers stood silently in the darkness. They extracted Gabriel from the backseat with a swiftness that spoke of much experience in such matters and propelled him across the cobblestones into the building. The stairwell was conveniently located a few steps from the entrance foyer. On the precipice of the first step, Gabriel was given a firm shove between the shoulder blades. He tumbled helplessly downward, somersaulting once, and came to rest on the next landing. A knifelike jab to the kidney blinded him with pain that ran the length of his body. A well-aimed kick to the abdomen left him unable to speak or breathe.

  They propped him upright again and flung him like war dead down the next flight. This time, the fall itself inflicted damage sufficient enough so that they did not have to further exert themselves with needless kicks or punches. After placing him on his feet again, they dragged him into a dark corridor. To Gabriel, it seemed to stretch an eternity. To the gulags of Siberia, he thought. To the killing fields outside Moscow where Stalin sentenced his victims to “seven grams of lead,” his favorite punishment for disloyalty, real or imagined.

  He had expected a period of isolation in a cell where Lubyanka’s blood-soaked history could chip away at his resistance. Instead, he was taken directly to an interrogation room and forced into a chair before a rectangular table of pale wood. Seated on the other side was a man in a gray suit with a pallor to match. He wore a neat little goatee and round, wire-framed spectacles. Whether or not he was trying to look like Lenin, the resemblance was unmistakable. He was several years younger than Gabriel—mid-forties, perhaps—and recently divorced, judging by the indentation on the ring finger of his right hand. Educated. Intelligent. A worthy opponent. A lawyer in another life, though it was unclear whether he was a defense attorney or prosecutor. A man of words rather than violence. Gabriel considered himself lucky. Given his location, and the available options, he could have done far worse.

  “Are you injured?” the man asked in English, as though he did not care much about the answer.

  “I am a diplomat of the State of Israel.”

  “So I’m told. You might find this difficult to believe, but I am here to help you. You may call me Sergei. It is a pseudonym, of course. Just like the pseudonym that appears in your passport.”

  “You have no legal right to hold me.”

  “I’m afraid I do. You killed two citizens of Russia this evening.”

  “Because they tried to kill me. I demand to speak to a representative of my embassy.”

  “In due time, Mr.—” He made a vast show of consulting Gabriel’s passport. “Ah, here it is. Mr. Golani.” He
tossed the passport onto the table. “Come now, Mr. Golani, we are both professionals. Surely we can handle this rather embarrassing situation in a professional manner.”

  “I’ve given a complete statement to the Militia.”

  “I’m afraid your statement raises many more questions than it answers.”

  “What else do you need to know?”

  He produced a thick file; then, from the file, a photograph. It showed Gabriel, five days earlier, walking through the terminal of Pulkovo 2 Airport in St. Petersburg.

  “What I need to know, Mr. Golani, is exactly what you are doing in Russia. And don’t try to mislead me. If you do, I will become very angry. And that is the last thing you want.”

  They went through it once; then they went through it again. The sudden illness of the deputy minister. Natan Golani’s hasty recruitment as a stand-in. The meetings and the speeches. The receptions and the dinners. Each contact, formal or casual, was duly noted, including the woman who had tried to seduce him during the final gala at the Mariinsky Theatre. Despite the fact the room was surely fitted with a recording system, the interrogator documented each answer in a small notebook. Gabriel couldn’t help but admire his technique. Had their roles been reversed, he would have done precisely the same thing.

  “You were originally scheduled to return to Tel Aviv the morning after the UNESCO conference concluded.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But you abruptly decided to extend your stay in Russia and travel to Moscow instead.” He lay a small hand atop the file, as if to remind Gabriel of its presence. “Why did you do this, Mr. Golani?”