They walked in silence, Gabriel with his gaze downward, Shamron trailing smoke like a steam
engine.
“I hear we’re sending a doctor up here tomorrow to remove your bandages.”
“Is that why you came? To see the great unveiling?”
“Gilah and I thought you would like to have some family around. Were we wrong to come?”
“Of course not, Ari. I just might not be very good company. That gorilla managed to fracture my orbit
and cause significant damage to my retina. Even under the best of circumstances, I’m going to have
blurred vision for a while.”
“And the worst?”
“Significant loss of vision in one eye. Not exactly a helpful condition for someone who makes his
living restoring paintings.”
“You make your
living
defending the State of Israel.” Greeted by Gabriel’s silence, Shamron looked
up at the treetops moving in the wind. “What’s wrong, Gabriel? No speech about how you’re planning to
leave the Office for good this time? No lecture about how you’ve given enough to your country and your
people already?”
“I’ll always be here for you, Ari-as long as I can see, of course.”
“What
are
your plans?”
“I’m going to remain a guest of Count Gasparri until I wear out my welcome. And, if my vision
permits, I’m going to quietly restore a few paintings for the Vatican Museums. You may recall I was
working on one when you asked me to run that little errand in Rome. Unfortunately, I had to let someone
else finish it for me.”
“I’m afraid I’m not terribly sympathetic. You saved thousands of lives with that little errand. That’s
more important than restoring a painting.”
They came to the fork in the track. Shamron looked up at the large, wood-carved crucifix and shook
his head slowly. “Did I mention that Gilah and I had dinner at the Vatican last night with Monsignor
Donati and His Holiness?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“His Holiness was quite pleased that the Church was able to play a small role in Ivan’s demise.
He’s quite anxious it remain a secret, though. He doesn’t want any more dead bodies in his Basilica.”
“You can see his point,” said Gabriel.
“Absolutely,” Shamron agreed.
It was one of the many aspects of the affair that remained secret- the fact that Ivan’s children, after
leaving Saint-Tropez, had been taken to an isolated priory high in the Maritime Alps. They had remained
there for nearly a week-under Church protection and with the full knowledge and approval of the Supreme
Pontiff-before boarding a CIA Gulfstream jet and flying clandestinely to the United States.
“Where are they?” Gabriel asked.
“Elena and the children?” Shamron dropped his cigarette and crushed it out. “I have no idea. And,
quite frankly, I don’t
want
to know. She’s Adrian ’s problem now. Ivan has started more than divorce
proceedings. He’s created a special unit within his personal security service with one job: finding Elena
and the children. He wants his children back. He wants Elena dead.”
“What about Olga and Grigori?”
“Your friend Graham Seymour is hearing rumors of Russian assassins heading for British shores.
Olga is locked away in a safe house outside London, surrounded by armed guards. Grigori is another
story. He’s told Graham he can look after himself.”
“Did Graham agree to this?”
“Not entirely. He’s got Grigori under full-time watch.”
“Watchers?
Watchers can’t protect anyone from a Russian assassin. Grigori should be surrounded
by men with guns.”
“So should you.” Shamron didn’t bother trying to conceal his irritation. “If it were up to me, you’d
be locked away someplace in Israel where Ivan would never think to look for you.”
“And you wonder why I’d rather be here.”
“Just don’t think about setting foot outside this estate. Not until Ivan’s had a chance to cool down.”
“Ivan doesn’t strike me as the sort to forget a grudge.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Perhaps we should just kill him now and get it over with.”
Shamron looked at the bandage on Gabriel’s eye. “Ivan can wait, my son. You have more important
things to worry about.”
They had arrived at the stables. In an adjacent pen, a pair of pigs were rolling about in the mud.
Shamron looked at the animals and winced in disgust.
“First a crucifix. Now pigs. What’s next?”
“We have our own chapel.”
Shamron ignited another cigarette. “I’m getting tired,” he said. “Let’s head back.”
They turned around and started toward the villa. Shamron produced an envelope from the breast
pocket of his leather bomber jacket and handed it to Gabriel.
“It’s a letter from Elena,” Shamron said. “Adrian Carter had it couriered to Tel Aviv.”
“Did you read it?”
“Of course.”
Gabriel removed the letter and read it for himself.
“Are you up to it?” Shamron asked.
“I’ll know after the great unveiling.”
“Maybe Gilah and I should stay here for a few days, just in case things don’t go well.”
“What about Mozart and Pinter?”
“I’d rather be here”-he looked around theatrically-“with the pigs and the crucifixes.”
“Then we’d love to have you.”
“Do the staff really have no idea who you are?”
“They think I’m an eccentric restorer who suffers from melancholia and mood swings.”
Shamron placed his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “It sounds to me as if they know you quite well.”
73 VILLADEIFIORI, UMBRIA
The doctor came the following morning. Israeli by way of Queens, he wore a rabbinical beard and
had the small soft hands of a baby. He removed the dressing from Gabriel’s eye, frowned heavily, and
began snipping away the sutures.
“Let me know if anything I do hurts.”
“Trust me, you’ll be the first to know.”
He shone a light directly into Gabriel’s eye and frowned some more.
“How does it feel?”
“Like you’re burning a hole in my cornea.”
The doctor switched off the light.
“How does it feel now?”
“Like it’s covered in cotton wool and Vaseline.”
“Can you see?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
He covered Gabriel’s good eye. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Twelve.”
“Come on. How many?”
“Four, I think, but I can’t be sure.”
The doctor uncovered the good eye. He was holding up two fingers. He put some drops in the
damaged eye that burned like battery acid and covered it with a black patch.
“I look like an idiot.”
“Not for long. Your retina looks remarkably good for what you’ve been through. You’re a very lucky
man. Wear the patch on and off for a few days until your eye regains some of its strength. An hour on, an
hour off. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Avoid bright lights. And don’t do anything that might give you unnecessary eyestrain.”
“How about painting?”
“Don’t even think about it. Not for at least three days.”
The doctor put his light and suture cutters back in his bag and pulled the zipper closed. Gabriel
thanked him for coming all the way from Tel Aviv for a five-minute job. “Just don’t tell anyone you were
here,” he added. “If you do, that angry-looking little man over there will kill you with his bare hands.”
The doctor looked at Shamron, who had managed to watch the entire proceeding without offering a
single piece of advice.
“Is it true what they say about him? Was he really the one who kidnapped Eichmann?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Is it all right if I shake his hand? I want to touch the hands that grabbed hold of that monster.”
"It’s fine,” said Gabriel. “But be careful. He bites.”
He didn’t want to wear the patch, but even he had to admit he looked better with it on than off. The
tissue around the eye was still distorted with swelling and the new scar was raw and hideous. “You’ll
look like yourself eventually,” Chiara assured him. “But it’s going to take a while. You older men don’t
heal as fast.”
The doctor’s optimism about the pace of his recovery turned out to be accurate. By the next morning,
Gabriel’s vision had improved dramatically, and by the morning after it seemed almost normal. He felt
ready to begin work on Elena’s request but confined his efforts to only one small task: the fabrication of a
stretcher, 38 ¾ inches by 29 ¼ inches. When the stretcher was finished, he pulled a linen canvas over it
and covered the canvas with a layer of ground. Then he placed the canvas on his easel and waited for it to
dry.
He slept poorly that night and woke at four. He tried to fall asleep again, but it was no use, so he
slipped out of bed and headed downstairs. He had always worked well in the early morning, and, despite
his weakened eye, that morning was no exception. He applied the first layers of base paint, and by midday
two small children were clearly visible on the canvas.
He took a break for lunch, then spent a second session before the canvas that lasted until dinner. He
painted from memory, without even a photograph for reference, and with a swiftness and confidence he
would not have thought possible a week earlier. Sometimes, when the house was quiet, he could almost
feel her at his shoulder, whispering instructions into his ear.
Watch your brushwork on the hands,
she
reminded him.
Not too impasto on the hands.
And sometimes, when his vision began to blur, he would
see Elena chained to a chair in her husband’s warehouse of death, a gun pressed to the side of her head.
You’d better pull the trigger, Arkady, because Ivan is never getting those children.
Chiara and the household staff knew better than to watch him while he worked, but Shamron and
Gilah were unaware of his rules and were therefore never far from his back. Gilah’s visits were brief in
duration, but Shamron, with nothing else to occupy his time, became a permanent fixture in Gabriel’s
studio. He had always been mystified by Gabriel’s ability to paint-to Shamron, it was but a parlor trick or
an illusion of some sort-and he was content now to sit silently at Gabriel’s side as he worked, even if it
meant forgoing his cigarettes.
“I should have left you at Bezalel in ’seventy-two,” he said late one night. “I should have found
someone else to execute those Black September murderers. You would have been one of the greatest
artists of your generation, instead of-”
“Instead of
what
?
”
“Instead of an eccentric old restorer with melancholia and mood swings who lives in a villa in the
middle of Umbria surrounded by pigs and crucifixes.”
“I’m happy, Ari. I have Chiara.”
“Keep her close, Gabriel. Remember, Ivan likes to break pretty things.”
Gabriel laid down his brush, then stepped back and examined the painting for a long time, hand
pressed to his chin, head tilted to one side. Chiara, who was watching from the top of the stairs, said, “Is
it finished, Signore Vianelli?”
Gabriel was silent for a moment. “Yes,” he said finally. “I think it is finished.”
“What are you going to do about the signature?” Shamron asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“May I give you a small piece of artistic advice?”
“If you must.”
“Sign it with the name your mother gave you.”
He dipped the brush in black paint and signed the name
Gabriel Allon
in the bottom left corner.
“Do you think she’ll like it?”
“I’m sure she will. Is it finished now?”
“Not quite,” Gabriel said. “I have to bake it for thirty minutes.”
"I should have left you at Bezalel,” Shamron said. “You could have been great. ”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Moscow Rules
is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in this
novel are the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Two Children on a Beach
by Mary Cassatt does not exist and therefore could not have been forged.
If it did, it would bear a striking resemblance to a picture called
Children Playing on the Beach,
which
hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Visitors to the French ski resort of Courchevel
will search in vain for the Hôtel Grand, for it, too, is an invention. Riviera Flight Services is fictitious,
and I have tinkered with airline schedules to make them fit my story. The Novodevichy Cemetery is
faithfully rendered, as is the House on the Embankment, though it is a slightly less sinister place now than
I have made it out to be. The FSB is in fact the internal security service of the Russian Federation, and its
multitude of sins have been widely reported. Deepest apologies to the director of the Impressionist and
Modern Art department at Christie’s auction house in London. I am quite certain he is nothing like Alistair
Leach. To the best of my knowledge, there is no CIA safe house on N Street in Georgetown.
Moskovsky Gazeta
does not exist, though, sadly, the threat to Russian journalists is all too real.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, forty-seven reporters, editors, cameramen, and