cameras were watching. Sarah was tempted to spare her the rest. She didn’t, more out of loathing for Ivan
than any other reason.
“Yekatarina thinks she’s the only one, but she’s not. There’s a flight attendant called Tatyana. And
there was a girl in London named Ludmila. I’m afraid Ivan treated her very badly. Eventually, he treats
them all badly.”
Elena’s eyes filled with tears.
“You mustn’t cry, Elena. Ivan might be watching us. You have to smile while I tell you these awful
things.”
Elena went to Sarah’s side, and their shoulders touched. Sarah could feel her trembling. Whether it
was with grief or fear, she could not tell.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“It’s not important, Elena. It’s only important that you finish what you started.”
Elena laughed softly to herself, as though she found Sarah’s remark mildly amusing. Her gaze swept
over the surface of the painting while her fingertips explored the texture of the faux craquelure.
“You had no right to pry into my private life.”
“We had no choice.”
Elena lapsed into silence. Sarah, for the moment, was listening to another voice.
Place the sales contract carefully before her and lay the pen next to it. But don’t pressure her
into signing. She has to reach the decision on her own. Otherwise, she’s no use to us.
“He wasn’t always like this,” Elena said finally. “Even when he worked for the KGB. You might
find this hard to believe, Sarah, but Ivan was really quite charming when I first met him.”
“I don’t find it hard to believe at all. He’s still quite charming.”
“When he wants to be.” She was still touching the craquelure. “When I first met Ivan, he told me he
worked in some dreary Soviet agricultural office. A few weeks later, after we’d fallen in love, he told me
the truth. I almost didn’t believe him. I couldn’t imagine this considerate, somewhat shy young man was
actually locking dissidents away in mental hospitals and the gulag.”
“What happened?”
“The money happened. The money changed everything. It’s changed Russia, too. Money is the new
KGB in Russia. Money controls our lives. And the pursuit of money prevents us from questioning the
actions of our so-called democratic government.”
Elena reached toward the face of one of the children, the little boy, and stroked the cracks on his
cheek.
“Whoever did this is quite good,” she said. “I assume you know him?”
“Very well, actually.” A silence, then: “Would you like to meet him?”
“Who is he?”
“It’s not important. It’s only important that you agree to see him. He’s trying to save innocent lives.
He needs your help.”
Elena’s finger moved to the face of the other child. “How will we do it? Ivan sees everything.”
“I’m afraid we’re going to need to tell a small lie.”
“What kind of small lie?”
“I want you to spend the rest of the afternoon flirting with Mikhail,” Sarah said. “Mikhail will tell
you everything you need to know.”
Sarah’s BlackBerry had one feature not available on over-the-counter models: the ability to encode
and "squirt” data messages to a nearby receiver in less than a thousandth of a second. The message she
transmitted early that evening was greeted with much celebration at the villa in Gassin. Gabriel
immediately sent word to the Operations Desk at King Saul Boulevard and the Global Ops Center at CIA
Headquarters in Langley. Then he gathered his team and began putting the final touches on the next phase
of the operation. The small lie they were going to tell Ivan. The small lie to cover the much bigger one.
41 SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
The storms had come down from the Maritime Alps after midnight and laid siege to Ivan Kharkov’s
fortress on the Baie de Cavalaire. Elena Kharkov had not been awakened by the violent weather. Having
endured two sleepless nights already, she had taken twice her normal dose of sedative. Now, she woke
grudgingly and in stages, like a diver rising to the surface from a great depth. She lay motionless for some
time, eyes closed, head throbbing, unable to recall her dreams. Finally, she reached blindly toward Ivan’s
side of the bed and her hand caressed the warm supple form of a young girl. For an instant, she feared
Ivan had been so audacious as to bring Yekatarina into their bed. Then she opened her eyes and saw it
was only Anna. The child was wearing Ivan’s gold reading glasses and was scribbling with Ivan’s gold
fountain pen on the back of some important business documents. Elena smiled in spite of her headache.
“Tell Maria to bring me a café au lait. A very
large
café au lait.”
“I’m very busy. I’m working, just like Papa.”
“Get me a coffee, Anna, or I’ll beat you severely.”
“But you never beat me, Mama.”
“It’s never too late to start.”
Anna scribbled stubbornly away.
“Please, Anna, I’m begging. Mama’s not feeling well.”
The child exhaled heavily; then, in a gesture that mimicked her father to perfection, she flung the
papers and pen onto the nightstand in mock anger and threw aside the blanket. As she started to climb out
of bed, Elena reached out suddenly and drew her tightly to her body.
“I thought you wanted coffee.”
“I do. But I want to hold you for a minute first.”
“What’s wrong, Mama? You seem sad.”
“I just love you very much.”
“Does that make you sad?”
“Sometimes.” Elena kissed Anna’s cheek. “Go, now. And don’t come back without coffee.”
She closed her eyes again and listened to the patter of Anna’s bare feet receding. A gust of cool wind
moved in the curtains and made shadows dance and play for her on the walls of the bedroom. Like all the
rooms of the house, it was far too large for familial or marital intimacy, and now, alone in the cavernous
space, Elena felt a prisoner to its vastness. She pulled the blankets tightly to her chin, creating a small
space for herself, and thought of Leningrad before the fall. As a child of a senior Communist Party
official, she had lived a life of Soviet privilege-a life of special stores, plentiful food and clothing, and
trips abroad to other Warsaw Pact countries. Yet nothing in her charmed upbringing could have prepared
her for the extravagance of life with Ivan. Homes such as this did not exist, she had been told as a child,
not only by the Soviet system but by an orthodox father who kept faith with communism even when it was
clear the emperor truly had no clothes. Elena realized now that she had been lied to her entire life, first by
her father and now by her husband. Ivan liked to pretend this grand palace by the sea was a reward for his
capitalist ingenuity and hard work. In truth, it had been acquired through corruption and connectionsto the
old order. And it was awash in blood. Some nights, in her dreams, she saw the blood. It flowed in rivers
along the endless marble corridors and spilled like waterfalls down the grand staircases. The blood shed
by men wielding Ivan’s weapons. The blood of children forced to fight in Ivan’s wars.
Anna reappeared, a breakfast tray balanced precariously in her hands. She placed it on the bed next
to Elena and took great pleasure in pointing out its contents: a bowl of café au lait, two slices of toasted
baguette, butter, fresh strawberry preserves, copies of the
Financial Times
and the
Herald Tribune.
Then
she kissed Elena’s cheek and departed. Elena quickly drank half the coffee, hoping the caffeine would act
as an antidote to her headache, and devoured the first slice of the toast. For some reason, she was
unusually hungry. A glance at the clock on her bedside table told her why. It was nearly noon.
She slowly finished the rest of the coffee while her headache gradually receded. With its departure,
she was granted a sudden clarity of vision. She thought of the woman she knew as Sarah Crawford. And
of Mikhail. And of the man who had painted such a beautiful forgery of
Two Children on a Beach
by
Mary Cassatt. She did not know precisely who they were; she only knew that she had no choice but to join
them. For the innocent who might die, she told herself now. For Russia. For herself.
For the children…
Another gust of wind stirred the long curtains. This time, it brought the sound of Ivan’s voice. Elena
wrapped herself in a silk robe and walked onto the terrace overlooking the swimming pool and the sea.
Ivan was supervising the cleanup of the storm damage, barking orders at the groundskeepers like the
foreman of a chain gang. Elena slipped back inside before he could see her and quickly entered the large
sunlit chamber he used as his informal upstairs office. Though the rules of their marriage were largely
unspoken, this room, like all of Ivan’s offices, was a forbidden zone for both Elena and the children. He
had been there already that morning; it was evident in the stench of cologne that hung on the air and the
morning headlines from Moscow scrolling across the screen of the computer. Two identical mobile
phones lay on the leather blotter, power lights winking. In violation of all marital decrees, spoken and
unspoken, she picked up one of the phones and clicked to the directory of the ten most recently dialed
numbers. One number appeared three times:
3064006.
With another click of a button, she dialed it again
now. Ten seconds later, a female voice in French answered: “Good morning. Carlton Hotel. How may I
direct your call?”
“Yekatarina Mazurov.”
“One moment, please.”
Then, two rings later, another female voice: younger than the first, Russian instead of French.
“Ivan, darling, is that you? I thought you would never call. Can I come with you on the trip, or is
Elena going to be with you? Ivan… What’s wrong… Answer me, Ivan…”
Elena calmly terminated the call. Then, from behind her, came another voice: Russian, male, taut
with quiet rage.
“What are you doing in here?”
She spun round, telephone still in her hand, and saw Ivan standing in the doorway.
“I told my mother I would call her this morning.”
He walked over and removed the phone from her grasp, then reached into the pocket of his trousers
and handed her another. “Use this one,” he ordered without explanation.
“What difference does it make which phone I use?”
Ignoring her question, he inspected the surface of the desk to see if anything else had been disturbed.
“You slept late,” he said, as if pointing out something Elena hadn’t considered. “I don’t know how you
managed to sleep through all that thunder and lightning.”
“I wasn’t feeling well.”
“You look well this morning.”
“I’m a bit better, thank you.”
“Aren’t you going to call her?”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
Ivan was a veteran of such games and far too quick for her. Elena felt a sudden need for time and
space. She slipped past him and carried the phone back to bed.
“What are you doing?”
She held up the phone. “Calling my mother.”
“But you should be getting dressed. Everyone’s meeting us in the Old Port at twelve-thirty.”
“For what?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“We’re spending the afternoon on the boat. I told you yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, Ivan. It must have slipped my mind.”
“So what are you doing back in bed? We have to leave in a few minutes.”
“Who have you invited?”
He rattled off a few names, all Russian, all male.
“I’m not sure I’m up to it, Ivan. If it’s all right with you, I’ll stay with the children. Besides, you and
your friends will have more fun if I’m not there.”
He didn’t bother to protest. Instead, he consulted his gold wristwatch, as if checking to see if there
was still time to reach Yekatarina. Elena resisted the impulse to inform him that she was eagerly awaiting
his call.
“What are you going to do with yourself all day?” he inquired casually, as if her answer didn’t much
concern him.
“I’m going to lie in bed and read the newspapers. Then, if I’m feeling well enough, I’ll take the
children into town. It’s market day, Ivan. You know how much the children love the market.”
The market: Ivan’s vision of hell on earth. He made one final indifferent attempt to change her mind
before retiring to his private bathroom suite to shave and shower. Ten minutes later, freshly clothed and
scented, he headed downstairs. Elena, still in bed, switched on the television and scrolled through the
channels to the closed-circuit shot from the security cameras at the front gate. Ivan must have been
anticipating a dangerous day on the waters off the Côte d’Azur because he was carrying his full package
of security: a driver and two bodyguards in his own car, plus a second car filled with four other men.
Elena glimpsed him one final time as he climbed into the back of his car. He was talking on his mobile
phone and wearing the smile he reserved for Yekatarina.
She switched off the television and, using her last perfidious vision as motivation, swung her feet to
the floor.
Don’t stop now,
she told herself.
If you stop, you’ll never find the courage to start again. And
whatever you do, don’t look back. You’re never alone.
Those final words were not her own. They had