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

by Daniel Silva

  63

  LUBYANKA SQUARE, MOSCOW

  Like almost everyone else in Moscow, Colonel Grigori Bulganov of the FSB was divorced. His marriage, like Russia itself, had been characterized by wild lurches from one extreme to the other: glasnost one day, Great Terror the next. Thankfully, it had been short and had produced no offspring. Irina had won the apartment and the Volkswagen; Grigori Bulganov, his freedom. Not that he had managed to do much with it: a torrid office romance or two, the occasional afternoon in the bed of his neighbor, a mother of three who was divorced herself.

  For the most part, Grigori Bulganov worked. He worked early in the morning. He worked late into the evening. He worked Saturdays. He worked Sundays. And sometimes, like now, he could even be found at his desk late on a Sunday night. His brief was counterespionage. More to the point, it was Bulganov’s job to neutralize attempts by foreign intelligence services to spy on the Russian government and State-owned Russian enterprises. His assignment had been made more difficult by the activities of the FSB’s sister service, the SVR. Espionage by the SVR had reached levels not seen since the height of the Cold War, which had prompted Russia’s adversaries to respond in kind. Grigori Bulganov could hardly blame them. The new Russian president was fond of rattling his saber, and foreign leaders needed to know whether it had an edge to it or had turned to rust in its scabbard.

  Like many FSB officers, Bulganov supplemented his government salary by selling his expertise, along with knowledge gained through his work itself, to private industry. In Bulganov’s case, he served as a paid informant for a man named Arkady Medvedev, the chief of security for Russian oligarch Ivan Kharkov. Bulganov fed Medvedev a steady stream of reports dealing with potential threats to his businesses, legal and illicit. Medvedev rewarded him by keeping a secret bank account in Bulganov’s name filled with cash. As a consequence of the arrangement, Grigori Bulganov had been able to penetrate Ivan Kharkov’s operations in a way no other outsider ever had. In fact, Bulganov was quite confident he knew more about Ivan’s arms-trafficking activities than any other intelligence officer in the world. In Russia, such knowledge could be dangerous. Sometimes, it could even be fatal, which explained why Bulganov was careful to stay on Arkady Medvedev’s good side. And why, when Medvedev called his cell at 11:15 P.M. on a Sunday night, he didn’t dare consider not answering it.

  Grigori Bulganov did not speak for the next three minutes. Instead, he tore a sheet of notepaper into a hundred pieces while he listened to the account of what had taken place in Moscow that afternoon. He was glad Medvedev had called him. He only wished he had done it on a secure line.

  “Are you sure it’s him?” Bulganov asked.

  “No question.”

  “How did he get back into the country?”

  “With an American passport and a crude disguise.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Medvedev told him the location.

  “What about Ivan’s wife?”

  “She’s here, too.”

  “What are your plans, Arkady?”

  “I’m going to give him one more chance to answer a few questions. Then I’m going to drop him in a hole somewhere.” A pause. “Unless you’d like to do that for me, Grigori?”

  “Actually, I might enjoy that. After all, he did disobey a direct order.”

  “How quickly can you get down here?”

  “Give me an hour. I’d like to have a word with the woman, too.”

  “A word, Grigori. This matter doesn’t concern you.”

  “I’ll be brief. Just make sure she’s there when I arrive.”

  “She’ll be here.”

  “How many men do you have there?”

  “Five.”

  “That’s a lot of witnesses.”

  “Don’t worry, Grigori. They’re not the talkative sort.”

  64

  KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA

  When Gabriel woke next, it was to the sensation of a dressing being applied to his wounded eye. He opened the one that still functioned and saw the task was being performed by none other than Arkady Medvedev. The Russian was working with a single hand. The other held a gun. A Stechkin, thought Gabriel, but he couldn’t be sure. He had never cared much for Russian guns.

  “Feeling sorry for me, Arkady?”

  “It wouldn’t stop bleeding. We were afraid you were going to die on us.”

  “Aren’t you going to kill me anyway?”

  “Of course we are, Allon. We just need a little bit of information from you first.”

  “And who said former KGB hoods didn’t have any manners?”

  Medvedev finished applying the bandage and regarded Gabriel in silence. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I know your real name?” he asked finally.

  “I assume you could have got it from your friends at the FSB. Or, it’s possible you saved yourself a phone call by simply beating it out of Elena Kharkov. You strike me as the type who enjoys hitting women.”

  “Keep that up and I’ll bring Dmitri back for another go at you. You’re not some kid anymore, Allon. One or two blows from Dmitri and you might not come to again.”

  “He has a lot of wasted motion in his punch. Why don’t you let me give him a couple of pointers?”

  “Are you serious or is that just your Jewish sense of humor talking?”

  “Our sense of humor came from living with Russians as neighbors. It helps to have a sense of humor during a pogrom. It takes the sting out of having your village burned down.”

  “You have a choice, Allon. You can lie there and tell jokes all night or you can start talking.” The Russian removed a cigarette from a silver case and ignited it with a matching silver lighter. “You don’t need this shit and neither do I. Let’s just settle this like professionals.”

  “By professional, I suppose you mean I should tell you everything I know, so then you can kill me.”

  “Something like that.” The Russian held the cigarette case toward Gabriel. “Would you like one?”

  “They’re bad for your health.”

  Medvedev closed the case. “Are you up for a little walk, Allon? I think you might find this place quite interesting.”

  “Any chance of taking off these handcuffs?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “I thought you would say that. Help me up, will you? Just try not to pull my shoulders out of their sockets.”

  Medvedev hoisted him effortlessly to his feet. Gabriel felt the room spin and for an instant thought he might topple over. Medvedev must have been thinking the same thing because he placed a steadying hand on his elbow.

  “You sure you’re up for this, Allon?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You’re not going to pass out on me again, are you?”

  “I’ll be fine, Arkady.”

  Medvedev dropped his cigarette and crushed it carefully with the toe of an expensive-looking Italian loafer. Everything Medvedev was wearing looked expensive: the French suit, the English raincoat, the Swiss wristwatch. But none of it could conceal the fact that, underneath it all, he was still just a cheap KGB hood. Just like the regime, thought Gabriel: KGB in nice clothing.

  They set out together between the crates. There were more than Gabriel could have imagined. They seemed to go on forever, like the warehouse itself. Hardly surprising, he thought. This was Russia, after all. World’s largest country. World’s largest hotel. World’s largest swimming pool. World’s largest warehouse.

  “What’s in the boxes?”

  “Food.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Medvedev pointed toward a skyscraper of wooden crates. “That’s canned tuna. Over there are canned carrots. A little farther on is the canned beef. We even have chicken soup.”

  “That’s very impressive. Fifteen years ago, Russia was living on American handouts. Now you’re feeding the world.”

  “We’ve made great strides since the fall of communism.”

  “What’s really in the boxes, Arka
dy?”

  Medvedev pointed toward the same skyscraper. “Those are bullets. Fifty million rounds, to be precise. Enough to kill a good portion of the Third World. There’s not much chance of that, though. Your average freedom fighter isn’t terribly disciplined. We don’t complain. It’s good for business.”

  Medvedev pointed to another stack. “Those are RPG-7s. Pound for pound, one of the best weapons money can buy. A great equalizer. With proper training, any twelve-year-old kid can take out a tank or an armored personnel carrier.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Over there are mortars. Next to the mortars is our bread and butter: the AK-47. It helped us beat the Germans, then it helped us change the world. The Kalashnikov gave power to the powerless. Voice to the voiceless.”

  “I hear it’s very popular in the rougher neighborhoods of Los Angeles, too.”

  Medvedev twisted his face into an expression of mock horror. “Criminals? No, Allon, we don’t sell to criminals. Our customers are governments. Rebels. Revolutionaries.”

  “I never had you figured for a true believer, Arkady.”

  “I’m not, really. I’m just in it for the money. Just like Ivan.”

  They walked on in silence. Gabriel knew this wasn’t a tour but a death march. Arkady Medvedev wanted something from Gabriel before they reached their destination. He wanted Ivan’s children.

  “You should know, Allon, that everything I am showing you is completely legal. We’ve got smaller warehouses in other parts of the country closer to the old armaments plants, but this is our central distribution facility. We’ve done well. We’re much bigger than our competition.”

  “Congratulations, Arkady. Are profits still strong or did you grow too quickly?”

  “Profits are fine, thank you. Despite Western claims to the contrary, arms trafficking is still a growth industry.”

  “How did you make out on the missile deal?”

  Medvedev was silent for a moment. “What missiles are you referring to, Allon?”

  “The SA-18s, Arkady. The Iglas.”

  “The Igla is one of the most accurate and lethal antiaircraft missiles ever produced.” Medvedev’s tone now had a briefing-room quality. “It is far too dangerous a system ever to be let loose into the free market. We don’t deal in Iglas. Only a madman would.”

  “That’s not what I’m told, Arkady. I hear you sold several hundred to an African country. A country that was planning to forward them at a substantial markup to some friends at al-Qaeda.”

  Gabriel lapsed into silence. When he spoke again, his tone was confiding rather than confrontational.

  “We know all about the Iglas, Arkady. We also know that you were against the sale from the beginning. It’s not too late to help us. Tell me where those missiles are.”

  Medvedev made no response, other than to lead Gabriel to an empty space in the center of the warehouse floor. The area was illuminated by a light burning high in the rafters overhead. Medvedev stood there, a performer on a stage, and extended his arms.

  “I’m afraid it is too late.”

  “Where are they now, Arkady?”

  “In the hands of a very satisfied customer.”

  Medvedev stepped out of the light and gave Gabriel a firm shove in the back. Apparently, there was one more thing they had to see.

  65

  KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA

  She was secured to a straight-backed metal chair at the far end of the vast warehouse. Luka Osipov, her former bodyguard, was standing to one side, the bald giant on the other. Her blouse was torn, her cheeks aflame from repeated slaps. She stared at Gabriel’s damaged eye in horror, then lowered her gaze to the floor. Medvedev took a fistful of her dark hair. It was not the sort of gesture that suggested he intended to let her live.

  “Before we begin, you should know that Mrs. Kharkov has been very cooperative this evening. She has given us a full and forthright accounting of her involvement in this sorry affair, beginning with the night she eavesdropped on my telephone conversation with her husband. She has admitted to us that the operation to steal Ivan’s secret papers was all her idea. She said you actually tried to talk her out of it.”

  “She’s lying, Arkady. We forced her into it. We told her that her husband was going down and that if she didn’t cooperate with us she was going down, too.”

  “That’s very chivalrous of you, Allon, but it’s not going to work.”

  Medvedev tightened his grip on Elena’s hair. Elena’s face remained a stoic mask.

  “Unfortunately,” Medvedev continued, “Mrs. Kharkov was unable to supply us with one critical piece of information: the location of her children. We were hoping you might tell us that now, so that Mrs. Kharkov might be spared additional unpleasantness. As you might expect, her husband is rather angry with her at the moment. He’s ordered us to do whatever’s necessary to get the answers we need.”

  “I told you, Arkady, I don’t know where the children are. That information was kept from me.”

  “In case you found yourself in a situation like this?”

  Medvedev tossed a mobile phone toward Gabriel. It struck him in the chest and clattered to the floor.

  “Call the French. Tell them to deliver the children to Ivan’s villa tonight, along with Ivan’s passport. Then tell them to release Ivan’s airplane. He’d like to return to Russia immediately.”

  “Let her go,” Gabriel said. “Do whatever you want to me. But let Elena go.”

  “So she can testify against her husband in a Western courtroom? So she can publicly bemoan how Russia is becoming an authoritarian state that once again poses a grave threat to global peace? That would not only be bad for the country but bad for business. You see, Mr. Kharkov’s friends in the Kremlin might find it annoying that he allowed such a situation to occur. And Mr. Kharkov tries very hard never to annoy his friends in the Kremlin.”

  “I promise we won’t let her talk. She’ll raise her children and keep her mouth shut. She’s innocent.”

  “Ivan doesn’t see it that way. Ivan sees her as a traitor. And you know what we do to traitors.” Medvedev held up his Stechkin for Gabriel to see, then placed the barrel against the back of Elena’s neck. “Seven grams of lead, as Stalin liked to say. That’s what Elena is going to get if you don’t order the French to let Ivan get on his plane tonight— with his children.”

  “I’ll make that call when Elena is safely on the ground in the West.”

  “She isn’t going anywhere.”

  Elena lifted her gaze from the floor and stared directly at Gabriel.

  “Don’t tell him a thing, Gabriel. They’re going to kill me regardless of what you do. I would rather those children be raised by anyone other than a monster like my husband.” She raised her eyes toward Medvedev. “You’d better pull the trigger, Arkady, because Ivan is never getting those children.”

  Medvedev walked over to Gabriel and slammed the butt of the Stechkin into his right eye. Gabriel toppled sideways to the floor, blinded by excruciating pain. It was compounded when Medvedev buried an Italian loafer into Gabriel’s solar plexus. He was lining up a second kick when a distant voice intervened in Russian. The voice was familiar to Gabriel, he was sure of it, but in his agony he could not recall where he had heard it before. It came to him a moment later, when he was finally able to breathe again. He had heard the voice two months earlier, during his first trip to Moscow. He had heard the voice in Lubyanka.

  66

  KALUZHSKAYA O BLAST, RUSSIA

  The two men had a brief but amicable debate, as if they were quarreling over whose turn it was to pay for lunch. Because it was in Russian, Gabriel could not understand it. Nor could he see their faces. He was still lying on his side, with his abdomen exposed to Arkady Medvedev’s size-eleven loafers.

  When the conversation concluded, two pairs of hands lifted him to his feet. It was then he saw the face of the man he knew only as “Sergei. ” He looked much as he had that night in Lubyanka. The same gray su
it. The same gray pallor. The same lawyerly eyes behind round spectacles. He was wearing a rather stylish raincoat. His little Lenin beard had recently been groomed.

  “I thought I told you not to come back to Russia, Allon.”

  “If you had been doing your job, I wouldn’t have had to.”

  “And which job is that?”

  “Preventing scum like Ivan from flooding the world with weapons and missiles.”

  Sergei sighed heavily, as if to say this was the last way he had hoped to spend his evening. Then he took hold of Gabriel’s handcuffs and gave them a sharp jerk. If Gabriel had had any feeling left in his wrists, he was certain it would have hurt like hell.

  They crossed the warehouse together, Sergei trailing a step behind, and exited through a door wide enough to accommodate Ivan’s freight trucks. It was raining again; three of Medvedev’s security men were sheltering beneath the eaves, talking quietly in Russian. A few feet away was an official FSB sedan. Sergei inserted Gabriel into the backseat and slammed the door.

  He drove with a Makarov in one hand and the radio on. Another speech by the Russian president, of course. What else? It was a small road and it ran through a thick birch forest. Tucked amid the trees were dachas—not palaces like Ivan’s dacha but real Russian dachas. Some were the size of a quaint cottage; others were little more than tool-sheds. All were surrounded by little plots of cultivated land. Gabriel thought of Olga Sukhova, tending to her radishes.

  I believe in my Russia, and I want no more acts of evil committed in my name . . .

  He looked into the rearview mirror and saw the eyes of Lenin.

  They were searching the road behind them.

  “Are we being followed, Sergei?”

  “It’s not Sergei. My name is Colonel Grigori Bulganov.”

  “How do you do, Colonel Bulganov?”

  “I do just fine, Allon. Now shut your mouth.”

  Bulganov eased into a turnout and killed the engine. After warning Gabriel not to move, he climbed out and opened the trunk. He rummaged around the interior before coming over to Gabriel’s side of the car. When he opened the door, he was holding the Makarov in one hand and a pair of rusted bolt cutters in the other.