pulled down to the bridge of his nose. Some days, the woman accompanied him, but usually he walked
alone, with only the dogs for company. Isabella greeted him pleasantly each time he passed the stables,
even though she usually received only a taciturn nod in return. His mood improved with exercise, though,
and once he actually stopped for a few minutes to chat about the horses. Isabella offered to give him
riding lessons when his eye had healed, but he made no response other than to turn his gaze skyward to
watch a jetliner on final approach to Fiumicino Airport. “Are you afraid?” Isabella asked him. Yes, he
admitted as the plane disappeared behind a khaki-colored hill. He was very afraid.
With each passing day, he walked a little farther, and by the middle of October he was able to hike
to the gate and back each morning. He even began venturing into the woods again. It was during one such
outing, on the first chilly day of the season, that the Villa dei Fiori echoed with a single crack of a small-
caliber weapon. The restorer emerged from the trees a few moments later with a sweater knotted casually
round his neck and the dogs howling with bloodlust. He informed Carlos that he had been charged by a
wild boar and that the boar, unfortunately, had not survived the encounter. When Carlos looked for
evidence of a gun, the restorer seemed to smile. Then he turned and set out down the gravel road toward
the villa. Carlos found the animal a few minutes later. Between its eyes was a bloodless hole. Small and
neat. Almost as if it had been painted with a brush.
The next morning, the Villa dei Fiori, along with the rest of Europe, awoke to the stunning news that
a disaster of unimaginable proportions had been narrowly averted. The story broke first in London, where
the BBC reported that Scotland Yard was conducting “major terrorism-related raids” in East London and
in neighborhoods near Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Later that morning, a sober-looking British prime
minister went before the cameras at Downing Street to inform the nation that the security services had
disrupted a major terrorist plot aimed at simultaneously destroying several airliners in British airspace. It
was not the first time a plot such as this had been uncovered in Britain. What set this one apart, though,
were the weapons involved: SA-18 shoulder-launch antiaircraft missiles. British police had found twelve
of the sophisticated weapons during their early-morning raids and, according to the prime minister, were
frantically searching for more. He refused to say where the terrorists had obtained the missiles but
pointedly reminded reporters of the name of the country where the weapons were manufactured: Russia.
Finally, in a chilling endnote, the prime minister stated that the plot had been “global in scope” and
warned reporters that they had a long day ahead.
Ten minutes later, in Paris, the French president strode before the cameras at the Élysée Palace and
announced that a similar round of police raids had been carried out that same morning in the suburbs of
Paris and in the South of France. Twenty missiles had been found thus far, ten in an apartment near
Charles de Gaulle Airport and ten more on a fishing boat in Marseilles ’s bustling old port. Unlike the
British prime minister, who had been circumspect about the origin of the missiles, the French president
said it was clear to him that the weapons had been supplied to the terrorists, directly or indirectly, by a
Russian source. He also suggested that the French security and intelligence services had played “a major
role in foiling the plot.”
Similar scenes played out in rapid succession in Madrid, Rome, Athens, Zurich, Copenhagen, and,
finally, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Washington, D.C. Flanked by his senior national security staff,
the president told the American people that eight SA-18 missiles had been discovered aboard a motor
yacht bound for Miami from the Bahamas and six more had been found in the trunk of a car attempting to
enter the United States from Canada. Four suspected terrorists had been detained and were now
undergoing interrogation. Based on what had been gleaned thus far, both by American and European
investigators, it appeared the plot had been timed to coincide with the Christmas holidays. American and
Israeli aircraft were the primary targets of the terrorists, who were hoping to maximize casualties among
“the Crusaders and the Jews.” The president assured the American people that the plot had been fully
disrupted and that it was safe to fly. The traveling public apparently did not agree. Within hours of the
announcement, hundreds of flights were delayed or rescheduled due to an unprecedented wave of
passenger cancellations. Airline analysts predicted the news would cause severe financial damage to an
already-troubled industry.
By nightfall, all eyes were on Moscow, where the Kremlin had maintained a Soviet-like silence as
the story unfolded. Shortly after 11 P.M., a spokesman for the Russian president finally issued a terse
statement categorically denying any link between the terrorist plot and legitimate arms sales by Russia to
its clients in the Middle East. If the missiles had indeed come from a Russian source, said the spokesman,
then it was almost certainly a criminal act-one that would be investigated to the fullest extent possible by
Russian authorities. Within a few hours, however, the veracity of the Russian statement was called into
question by a dramatic newspaper report in London. It was written by someone the men of the Kremlin
knew well: Olga Sukhova, the former editor in chief of
Moskovsky Gazeta.
It was among the most intriguing aspects of the entire affair. Kept under virtual house arrest in her
Moscow apartment for much of the summer, Olga Sukhova had managed to slip out of Russia undetected,
purportedly with the help of an FSB colonel named Grigori Bulganov. After crossing the Ukrainian
border by car, the two were spirited to a safe house in England, where they had worked closely with U.S.
and British intelligence officers involved in the search for the SA-18 missiles. In exchange for her
cooperation, Olga had been granted “a period of exclusivity” regarding certain details of the affair-details
she published, in spectacular fashion, in London ’s
Telegraph
newspaper.
According to her front-page story, the missiles seized by European and American officials had
originally been sold to the Democratic Republic of East Africa by Russian businessman and arms
trafficker Ivan Kharkov. Kharkov had reportedly concluded the sale with the full knowledge that the
weapons were to be transferred to an al-Qaeda affiliate in the Horn of Africa. The article also implicated
Kharkov and his now-deceased chief of security, Arkady Medvedev, in the murders of
Gazeta
journalists
Aleksandr Lubin and Boris Ostrovsky.
For the next several days, Olga Sukhova was a fixture on European and American television. So,
too, was the man credited with facilitating her escape: Colonel Grigori Bulganov of the FSB. He told
tales of rampant corruption inside his old service and warned that the new masters of the Kremlin were
nothing but KGB thugs who planned to confront the West at every turn.
By the end of the week, he and Olga Sukhova had both signed lucrative book deals. As for the man at
the center of the storm, he was nowhere to be found. Ivan Borisovich Kharkov, real estate developer,
venture capitalist, and international arms trafficker, had apparently vanished into thin air.
His assets were quickly seized; his bank accounts quickly frozen. For a time, his grand palaces were
surrounded day and night by reporters and cameramen. Finally, when it became clear Ivan was never
coming back, the reporters moved on in search of other prey.
The list of countries where Ivan was suddenly wanted for arrest or questioning was long and
somewhat ludicrous. There was irony in the situation, of course; even the most jaundiced observer had to
admit it. For years, Ivan had callously fueled the deadly civil wars and conflicts of the Third World with
little or no interference from the West. But only when he crossed some moral line-when he dared to sell
his wares directly to the forces of global Islamic extremism-did the governments of the civilized world sit
up and take notice. Even if al-Qaeda had managed to carry out its attack as planned, said one respected
commentator, the death toll would have been but a tiny fraction of those killed by Ivan’s guns and bullets
in Africa alone.
It was assumed by all that he had taken refuge somewhere inside Russia. How he had managed to get
there from France, where he was last seen, was a matter of considerable contention. French aviation
officials acknowledged that Ivan’s private jet had departed Côte d’Azur International Airport on the
morning of August twenty-sixth, though they refused repeated requests to release a flight plan or complete
manifest.The press demanded to know whether French authorities had been aware of Ivan’s activities at
the time of the flight. If so, they asked, why had he and his party been allowed to depart?
Confronted with a gathering media storm, French authorities were finally forced to admit that they
were
indeed aware of Ivan’s involvement in the missile sale at the time of the flight in question, but
“certain operational exigencies” required that Ivan be allowed to leave French soil. Those operational
exigencies notwithstanding, French prosecutors now wanted Ivan back, as did their counterparts in
Britain, where he faced a slew of criminal charges ranging from money laundering to involvement in a
plot to commit an act of mass murder. A Kremlin spokesman dismissed the charges as “Western lies and
propaganda” and pointed out that it was not possible under Russian law to extradite Mr. Kharkov to face
criminal charges. The spokesman went on to say that Russian authorities were completely unaware of Mr.
Kharkov’s whereabouts and had no record he was even in the country.
Forty-eight hours later, when a photograph surfaced of Ivan attending a Kremlin reception for the
newly reelected Russian president, the Kremlin could not be troubled for a comment. In the West, much
was made of the fact that Ivan had attended the reception with a stunning young supermodel named
Yekatarina Mazurov rather than his elegant wife. A week later, he filed for divorce in a Russian court,
accusing Elena Kharkov of sins ranging from infidelity to child abuse. Elena was not there to contest the
charges. Elena, it seemed, had disappeared from the face of the earth.
None of which seemed to concern the staff of the Villa dei Fiori in Umbria, for they had more
pressing matters with which to contend. There were crops to bring in and fences that needed mending.
There was a horse with an injured leg and a leak in the roof that needed fixing before the heavy rains of
winter. And there was a melancholy man with a patch over one eye who feared he would never be able to
work again. He could do nothing now but wait. And toss his tennis ball against the Etruscan walls of the
garden. And walk the dusty gravel road with the hounds at his heels.
72 VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA
Ari Shamron telephoned a week later to invite himself to lunch. He arrived in a single embassy car,
with Gilah at his side. The afternoon was windy and raw, so they ate indoors in the formal dining room
with an olive-wood fire blazing in the open hearth. Shamron referred to himself as Herr Heller, one of his
many work names, and spoke only German in front of Anna and Margherita. When lunch was over, Chiara
and Gilah helped with the dishes. Gabriel and Shamron pulled on coats and walked along the gravel road
between the umbrella pines. Shamron waited until they were a hundred yards from the villa before
lighting his first Turkish cigarette. “Don’t tell Gilah,” he said. “She’s bothering me to quit again.”
“She’s not as naïve as you think. She knows you smoke behind her back.”
“She doesn’t mind as long as I make at least
some
effort to conceal it from her.”
“You should listen to her for once. Those things are going to kill you.”
“I’m as old as these hills, my son. Let me enjoy myself while I’m still here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Gilah was coming with you?”
“I suppose it slipped my mind. I’m not used to traveling with my wife. We’re going to Vienna to
listen to music next. Then we’re going to London to see a play.”
Shamron made it sound as if he had been sentenced to a month in solitary, with punishment rations.
“This is what people do when they retire, Ari. They travel. They relax.”
“I’m not
retired.
God, I hate that word. Next, you’ll accuse me of being deceased.”
“Try to enjoy yourself, Ari-if not for your sake, then for Gilah’s. She deserves a nice holiday in
Europe. We all love you dearly, but you haven’t exactly been the perfect husband and father.”
“And for my sins, I am to be punished with a week of Mozart and Pinter.”