associates would be coming to the house in a few hours for an important meeting. He didn’t identify these
business associates and I knew far better than to ask. For the rest of the evening, he was on edge. Anxious.
Pacing. Cursing the Russian weather. I knew the signs. I’d seen my husband in moods like this before.
Ivan always gets very excited before a big dance.”
“Dance?”
“Forgive me, Mr. Allon. Dance is one of the code words he and his men use when discussing arms
transactions. ‘We have to make final arrangements for the
dance.’
‘We have to book a hall for the
dance.’
‘We have to hire a band for the
dance.’
‘How many chairs will we need for the
dance
?’ ‘How many
bottles of vodka?’ ‘How much caviar?’ ‘How many loaves of black bread?’ I’m not sure who they think
they’re deceiving with this nonsense but it certainly isn’t me.”
“And did Ivan’s visitors actually come that evening?”
“Technically, it was the next morning. Two-thirty in the morning, to be exact.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes, I saw them.”
“Describe the scene for me. Carefully, Elena. The smallest details can be important.”
“There were eight of them in all, plus a team of Ivan’s bodyguards. Arkady Medvedev was there as
well. Arkady is the chief of my husband’s personal security service. The bodyguards have a joke about
Arkady. They say Arkady is Ivan on his worst day.”
“Where was the delegation from?”
“They were from Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa.” She managed a smile. “Sarah’s area of expertise.”
“Which country?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Did you meet them?”
“I’m
never
allowed to meet them.”
“Had you ever seen any of them before?”
“No, just different versions of them. They’re all the same, really. They speak different languages.
They fly different flags. They fight for different causes. But in the end they’re all the same.”
“Where were you while they were in the dacha?”
“Upstairs in our bedroom.”
“Were you ever able to hear their voices?”
“Sometimes. Their leader was a giant of a man. He was a baritone. His voice made the walls
vibrate. He had a laugh like thunder.”
“You’re a linguist, Elena. If they spoke another European language, what would it be?”
“French. Most definitely French. It had that lilt, you know?”
They drank first, she said. There was always drinking involved when Ivan was planning a dance. By
the time the hard bargaining began, the guests were well lubricated, and Ivan made no effort to control the
volume of their voices, especially the voice of their baritone leader. Elena began to hear words and terms
she recognized: AKs. RPGs. Mortars. Specific types of ammunition. Helicopter gunships. Tanks.
“Before long they were arguing about money. The prices of specific weapons and systems.
Commissions. Bribes. Shipping and handling. I knew enough about my husband’s business dealings to
realize they were discussing a
major
arms deal-most likely with an African nation that was under
international embargo. You see, Mr. Allon, these are the men who come to my husband, men who cannot
purchase arms legally on the open market. That’s why Ivan is so successful. He fills a very specific need.
And that’s why the poorest nations on earth pay vastly inflated prices for the weaponry they use to
slaughter each other.”
“How big a deal are we talking about?”
“The kind that is measured in
hundreds
of millions of dollars.” She paused, then said, “Why do you
think Ivan didn’t bat an eye when I asked him for two and a half million dollars for your worthless
Cassatt?”
“How long did these men stay in your home?”
“Until early the next morning. When they finally left, Ivan came upstairs to our room. He was
soaring. I’d seen him in moods like that, too. It was bloodlust. He crawled into bed and practically raped
me. He needed a body to pillage.
Any
body. He settled for mine.”
“When did you realize this deal was different?”
“Two nights later.”
“What happened?”
“I answered a phone I shouldn’t have answered. And I listened long after I should have hung up.
Simple as that.”
“You were still at the dacha?”
“No, we’d left the dacha by then and had returned to Zhukovka.”
“Who was on the line?”
“Arkady Medvedev.”
“Why was he calling?”
“There was a problem with final arrangements for the big dance.”
“What sort of trouble?”
"Big trouble. Merchandise-gone-astray trouble.”
Ivan had a tradition after big transactions. The blowout, he called it. A night on the town for the
clients, all expenses paid, the bigger the deal, the bigger the party. Drinks in the hottest bars. Dinner in the
trendiest restaurants. A nightcap with the most beautiful young girls Moscow had to offer. And a team of
Ivan’s bodyguards serving as chaperones to make sure there was no trouble. The blowout with the
African delegation was a rampage. It began at six in the evening and went straight through till nine the next
night, when they finally crawled back to their beds at the Ukraina Hotel and passed out.
“It’s one of the reasons Ivan has so many repeat customers. He always treats them well. No delays,
no missing stock, no rusty bullets. The dictators and the warlords hate rusty bullets. They say Ivan’s stock
is always top drawer, just like Ivan’s parties.”
The post-transaction blowouts served another purpose beyond building customer loyalty. They
allowed Ivan and his security service to gather intelligence on clients at moments when their defenses
were compromised by alcohol and other recreational pursuits. Given the size of the deal with the African
delegation, Arkady Medvedev went along for the ride himself. Within five minutes of dumping the
Africans at the Ukraina, he was on the phone to Ivan.
“Arkady is former KGB. Just like Ivan. He’s normally a very cool customer. But not that night. He
was agitated. It was obvious he’d picked up something he wasn’t happy about. I should have hung up, but
I couldn’t bring myself to take the telephone from my ear. So I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and
held my breath. I don’t think I took a single breath for five minutes. I thought my heart was going to burst
through my skin.”
“Why didn’t Ivan know you were on the line?”
“I suppose we picked up separate extensions at the same moment. It was luck. Stupid, dumb luck. If
it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here now. Neither would you.”
“What did Arkady tell Ivan?”
“He told him that the Africans were planning to resell some of the supplies from the
big dance
at a
substantial markup to a third party. And this
third party
wasn’t the usual sort of African rebel rabble.”
She lowered her voice and furrowed her brow in an attempt to give a masculine cast to her face. “‘They
are the worst of the worst, Ivan,’” she said, imitating Arkady’s voice. “‘They are the sort who fly
airplanes into buildings and blow up backpacks on European subways, Ivan. The ones who kill women
and children, Ivan. The head choppers. The throat slitters.’”
“Al-Qaeda?”
“He never used that name but I knew who he was talking about. He said it was essential that they
cancel that portion of the deal because the merchandise in question was too dangerous to be placed in the
hands of just anyone. There could be blowback, he said. Blowback for Russia. Blowback for Ivan and his
network.”
“How did Ivan react?”
“My husband shared none of Arkady’s alarm. Quite the opposite. The merchandise in question was
the most lucrative part of the overall deal. Instead of taking that portion of the deal off the table, Ivan
insisted that, in light of the new information, they had to renegotiate the entire package. If the Africans
were planning to resell at a substantial markup, then Ivan wanted his cut. In addition, there was the
potential for more money to be earned on shipping and handling. ‘Why let the Africans deliver the
weapons?’ he asked. ‘We can deliver them ourselves and make a few hundred thousand in the process.’
It’s how Ivan earns much of his money. He has his own cargo fleet. He can put weapons on the ground
anywhere in the world. All he needs is an airstrip.”
“Did Ivan ever suspect you’d eavesdropped on the call?”
“He never did or said anything to make me think so.”
“Was there another meeting with the Africans?”
“They came to our house in Zhukovka the next evening, after they’d had a chance to sober up. It
wasn’t as cordial as the first gathering. There was a great deal of shouting, mostly by Ivan. My husband
doesn’t like double dealings. It brings out the worst in him. He told the Africans he knew all about their
plans. He told them that unless they agreed to give him his fair share of the deal, the merchandise was off
the table. The baritone giant screamed back for a while but eventually buckled to Ivan’s demands for
more money. The next night, before they flew home, there was another blowout to celebrate the
new
deal.
All sins had been forgiven.”
“The merchandise in question-how did they refer to it?”
“They called them needles. In Russian, the word needle is
igla.
I believe the Western designation for
this weapon system is SA-18. It’s a shoulder-launch antiaircraft weapon. Though I’m not an expert in
matters such as these, it is my understanding that the SA-18 is highly accurate and extremely effective.”
“It’s one of the most dangerous antiaircraft weapons in the world. But are you sure, Elena? Are you
sure
they used the word
igla
?”
“Absolutely. I’m also certain that my husband didn’t care whether hundreds, or perhaps even
thousands, of innocent people might die because of these weapons. He was only concerned that he get his
cut of the action. What was I supposed to do with knowledge such as this? How could I sit silently and do
nothing?”
“So what did you do?”
“What
could
I do? Could I go to the police? We Russians don’t go to the police. We Russians
avoid
the police. Go to the FSB? My husband
is
the FSB. His network operates under the protection and the
blessing of the FSB. If I had gone to the FSB, Ivan would have heard about it five minutes later. And my
children would have grown up without a mother.”
Her words hung there for a moment, an unnecessary reminder of the consequences of the game they
were playing.
“Since it was impossible for me to go to the Russian authorities, I had to find some other way of
telling the world what my husband was planning to do. I needed someone I could trust. Someone who
could expose his secrets without revealing the fact that I was the source of the information. I knew such a
person; I’d studied languages with her at Leningrad State. After the fall of communism, she’d become a
famous reporter in Moscow. I believe you’re familiar with her work.”
Though Gabriel had pledged fidelity to Elena, he had been less than forthright about one aspect of the
debriefing: he was not the only one listening. Thanks to a pair of small, concealed microphones and a
secure satellite link, their conversation was being beamed live to four points around the globe: King Saul
Boulevard in Tel Aviv, the headquarters of both MI5 and MI6 in London, and the CIA’s Global Ops
Center in Langley, Virginia. Adrian Carter was in his usual seat, the one reserved for the director of the
national clandestine service. Known for his tranquil, detached demeanor in times of crisis, Carter
appeared somewhat bored by the transmission, as though he were listening to a dull program on the radio.
That changed, however, when Elena uttered the word
igla.
As a Russian speaker, Carter did not need to
wait for Elena’s translation to understand the significance of the word. Nor did he bother to listen to the
rest of her explanation before picking up the extension of a hotline that rang only on the desk of the
director. “The arrows of Allah are real,” Carter said. “Someone needs to tell the White House.
Now.”
45 THE MASSIF DES MAURES, FRANCE
They adjourned to the terrace. It was small, cluttered with potted herbs and flowers, and shaded by a
pair of umbrella pine. An ancient olive grove spilled into a small gorge, and on the opposite hillside
stood two tiny villas that looked as though they had been rendered by the hand of Cézanne. Somewhere in
the distance, a child was crying hysterically for its mother. Elena did her best to ignore it while she told
Gabriel the rest of the story. Her quiet lunch with Olga Sukhova. The nightmare of Aleksandr Lubin’s
murder in Courchevel. The near breakdown she had suffered after Boris Ostrovsky’s death in St. Peter’s
Basilica.
“I shut myself off from the outside world. I stopped watching television. I stopped reading the
newspaper. I was afraid-afraid that I would learn an airplane had been shot down, or another journalist