The Defector (40 page)

“Elena said you were a perfect gentleman. That you made love twice. That you wanted to make love a third time, but Elena said no. She had to be going. She had to get home to her children. Do you remember it now, Mikhail?”

“I remember, Ivan.”

“These were lies, were they not? You concocted this story of a romantic encounter in order to deceive me. You never made love to my wife in that villa. You debriefed her about my operation. Then you plotted her defection and the theft of my children.”

“No, Ivan.”

“No, what?”

“The lunch was waiting. So was the rosé. Bandol. Elena’s favorite. We made love twice. Unlike you, I was a perfect gentleman.”

The knee came up. Mikhail went down. He stayed down.

Now it was Gabriel’s turn.

IVAN’S MEN had not bothered to remove Gabriel’s watch. It was strapped to his left wrist, and the wrist was pinned to his kidney. In his mind, though, he could picture the digital numbers advancing. At last check it had been 9:11:07. Time had stopped with the collision, and it had started again with Ivan’s arrival from Konakovo. Gabriel and Shamron had chosen the old airfield for a reason: to create space between Ivan and the dacha. To create time in the event something went wrong. Gabriel reckoned at least an hour had elapsed between the time of their capture and the time of Ivan’s arrival. He knew Shamron had not spent that hour planning a funeral. Now Gabriel and Mikhail had to help their own cause by giving Shamron one thing: time. Oddly enough, they would have to enlist Ivan as their ally. They had to keep Ivan angry. They had to keep Ivan talking. When Ivan went silent, bad things happened. Countries tore themselves to shreds. People died.

“You were a fool to come back to Russia, Allon. I knew you would, but you were a fool regardless.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me in Italy and be done with it?”

“Because there are certain things a man does himself. And thanks to you, I can’t go to Italy. I can’t go anywhere.”

“You don’t like Russia, Ivan?”

“I love Russia.” A terse smile. “Especially from a distance.”

“So I suppose the demand for your children was a lie—just like your agreement to return my wife unharmed.”

“I believe ‘safe and sound’ were the words Korovin and Shamron used in Paris. And no, Allon, it was not a lie. I do want my children back.” He glanced at Chiara. “I calculated that kidnapping your wife gave me at least an outside chance of getting them.”

“You knew Elena and the children were living in America?”

“Let us say I strongly suspected that was the case.”

“So why didn’t you kidnap an American target?”

“Two reasons. First and foremost, our president wouldn’t have permitted it, since it would have almost certainly caused an open rupture in our relations with Washington.”

“And the second reason?”

“It wouldn’t have been a wise investment in time and resources.”

“Would you care to explain?”

“Certainly,” said Ivan, his tone suddenly convivial. “As everyone in the world knows, the Americans have a policy against negotiating with kidnappers and terrorists. But you Israelis operate differently. Because you are a small country, life is very precious to you. That means you’ll negotiate at the drop of a hat when innocent life is at stake. My God, you’ll even trade dozens of proven murderers in order to retrieve the bodies of your dead soldiers. Your love of life makes you a weak people, Allon. It always has.”

“So you calculated we would bring pressure to bear on the Americans to return the children?”

“Not on the Americans,” Ivan said. “On Elena. My former wife is rather like the Jews: devious and weak.”

“Why the pause between Grigori’s abduction and Chiara’s?”

“The tsar decreed it. Grigori was a test case of sorts. Our president wanted to see how the British would react to a clear provocation on their soil. When he saw only weakness, he allowed me to push the knife in deeper.”

“By kidnapping my wife and making a play for your children.”

“Correct,” said Ivan. “As far as our president was concerned, your wife was a legitimate target. After all, Allon, you and your American friends carried out an illegal operation on Russian soil last summer—an operation that resulted in the deaths of several of my men, not to mention the theft of my family.”

“And if Elena had refused to return Nikolai and Anna?”

Ivan smiled. “Then I was certain I would get you.”

“So now you have me, Ivan. Let the others go.”

“Mikhail and Grigori?” Ivan shook his head. “They betrayed my trust. And you know what we do with traitors, Allon.”

“Vyshaya mera.”

Ivan raised his chin in a show of mock admiration.

“Very impressive, Allon. I see you’ve picked up a bit of Russian during your travels in our country.”

“Let them go, Ivan. Let Chiara go.”

“Chiara? Oh, no, Allon, that is not possible, either. You see, you took my wife. Now I’m going to take yours. That is justice. Just like it says in your Jewish book. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn, wound for wound.”

“It’s called Exodus, Ivan.”

“Yes, I know. Chapter 21, if memory serves. And your laws state very clearly that I am permitted to take your wife since you took mine. Too bad you didn’t have a child. I would take that, too. But the PLO already did that, didn’t they? In Vienna. His name was Daniel, was it not?”

Gabriel lunged at him. Ivan stepped deftly away and allowed Gabriel to pitch headlong into the snow. The guards let him lie there a moment—a precious moment, thought Gabriel—before lifting him once more to his feet. Ivan brushed the snow from his face.

“I know things, too, Allon. I know you were there in Vienna that night. I know you watched the car explode. I know you tried to pull your wife and son out of the flames. Do you remember what your son looked like when you finally pulled him from the fire? From what I hear, it wasn’t good.”

Another futile lunge. Another fall into the snow. Again the guards let him lie there, face burning with cold. And with rage.

Time . . . Precious time . . .

They lifted him upright again. This time, Ivan didn’t bother removing the snow.

“But let us return to the topic of betrayal, Allon. How were you able to discover where I was keeping Grigori and your wife?”

“Anton Petrov told me.”

Ivan’s face reddened. “And how did you get to Petrov?”

“Vladimir Chernov.”

The eyes narrowed. “And Chernov?”

“You were betrayed again, Ivan—betrayed by someone you thought was a friend.”

The blow landed in Gabriel’s abdomen. Unprepared for it, he doubled over, thus leaving himself exposed to Ivan’s knee. It sent him to the snow again, this time at Chiara’s feet. She gazed down at him, her face a mask of terror and grief. Ivan spat and squatted at Gabriel’s side.

“Don’t pass out on me just yet, Allon, because I have one more question. Would you like to watch your wife die? Or would you prefer to die in front of your wife?”

“Let her go, Ivan.”

“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wife for wife.”

He looked at his bodyguards.

“Put this garbage on his feet.”

71

VLADIMIRSKAYA OBLAST, RUSSIA

NAVOT WAS the first to spot the helicopter. It was coming from the direction of Moscow, flying dangerously fast a couple hundred feet above the ground. Ninety seconds later, two more just like it flashed overhead.

“Go back, Oded.”

“What about our orders?”

“To hell with our orders. Go back!”

TIME ...

Time was slipping away from them. It stole silently through the forest, birch tree to birch tree. Time was now their enemy. Gabriel knew he had to seize hold of it. And for that he needed Ivan’s help. Keep him talking, he thought. Bad things happen when Ivan stops talking.

For now, Ivan was wordlessly leading the procession of death along a snowy forest path, one massive hand wrapped around Chiara’s arm. Flanked by bodyguards, Gabriel, Mikhail, and Grigori followed.

Keep him talking . . .

“What caused the depressions in the forest, Ivan?”

“Why are you so damn interested in those depressions?”

“They remind me of something.”

“I’m not surprised. How did you find them?”

“Satellites. They show up nicely from space. Very straight. Very even.”

“They’re old, but the men who dug them did a good job. They used a bulldozer. It’s still here if you’d like to have a look. It stopped working years ago.”

“So how do you open up the earth now, Ivan?”

“Same method, new machine. It’s American. Say what you want about the Americans, they still make a damn good bulldozer.”

“What’s in the pits, Ivan?”

“You’re a smart boy, Allon. You seem to know a bit about our history. You tell me.”

“I assume they’re mass graves from the Great Terror.”

“Great Terror? This is a Western slur invented by Koba’s enemies.”

Koba was Stalin’s Party name. Koba was Ivan’s hero.

“What would you call the systematic torture and murder of three-quarters of a million people, Ivan?”

Ivan appeared to give the matter serious consideration. “I believe I would call it a long overdue pruning of the forest. The Party had been in power for nearly twenty years. There was a great deal of deadwood that needed to be cleared away. And you know what happens when wood is chopped, Allon.”

“Splinters must fall.”

“That’s right. Splinters must fall.”

Ivan translated a portion of the exchange for his Russian-speaking bodyguards. They laughed. Ivan laughed, too.

Keep him talking . . .

“How did this place work, Ivan?”

“You’ll find out in a minute or two.”

“When was it in operation? ’Thirty-six? ’Thirty-seven?”

Ivan stopped walking. So did everyone else.

“It was ’thirty-seven—the summer of ’thirty-seven, to be precise. It was the time of the troikas. Do you know about the troikas, Allon?”

Gabriel did. He paid the information out slowly, deliberately. “Stalin was getting annoyed at the slow pace of the killings. He wanted to speed things up, so he created a new way of putting the accused on trial: the troikas. One Party member, one NKVD officer, and a public prosecutor. It wasn’t necessary for the accused to be present during his trial. Most were sentenced without ever knowing they were even under investigation. Most trials lasted ten minutes. Some less.”

“And appeals were not permitted,” Ivan added with a smile. “They won’t be permitted now, either.”

He nodded to the pair of bodyguards who were holding Grigori upright. The procession began moving again.

Keep him talking. Bad things happen when Ivan stops talking.

“I suppose the killing took place inside the dacha. That’s why it has a cellar with a special room in it—a room with a drain in the center of the floor. And that’s why the track is winding instead of straight. Stalin’s henchmen wouldn’t have wanted the neighbors to know what was going on here.”

“And they never did. The condemned were always picked up after midnight and brought here in black cars. They were taken straight into the dacha and given a good beating to make them easy to handle. Then it was down to the cellar. Seven grams of lead in the nape of the neck.”

“And then?”

“They were thrown into carts and brought out here to the graves.”

“Who’s buried out here, Ivan?”

“By the summer of ’thirty-seven, most of the heavy cutting had already been done. Koba just had to clear away the brush.”

“The brush?”

“Mensheviks. Anarchists. Old Bolsheviks who’d been associated with Lenin. A few priests, kulaks, and aristocrats for good measure. Anyone Koba thought could possibly pose a threat was liquidated. Then their families were liquidated, too. There’s a real revolutionary stew buried beneath these woods, Allon. They all sleep together. Some nights, you can almost hear them arguing about politics. And the best part is, no one even knows they’re here.”

“Because you bought the land after the fall of the Soviet Union to make sure the dead stayed buried?”

Ivan stopped walking. “Actually, I was asked to buy the land.”

“By whom?”

“My father, of course.”

Ivan had answered without hesitation. Annoyed by Gabriel’s inquiries at first, he now actually seemed to be enjoying the exchange. Gabriel reckoned it must be easy to unburden one’s secrets to a man who would soon be dead. He tried to frame another question that would keep Ivan talking, but it wasn’t necessary. Ivan resumed his lecture without further prompting.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed, it was a dangerous time for the KGB. There was talk about throwing open the archives. Airing dirty laundry. Naming names. The old guard was horrified. They didn’t want the KGB dragged through the mud of history. But they had other motivations for keeping the secrets, too. You see, Allon, they weren’t planning to stay out of power for long. Even then, they were plotting their comeback. They succeeded, of course. The KGB, by another name, is once again running Russia.”

“And you preside over the last mass grave of the Great Terror.”

“The last? Hardly. You can’t put a shovel in the soil of Russia without hitting bone. But this one is quite large. Apparently, there are seventy thousand souls buried beneath these trees. Seventy thousand. If it ever became public . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he were momentarily at a loss for words. “Let us say it might cause considerable embarrassment inside the Kremlin.”

“Is that why the president is so willing to tolerate your activities?”

“He gets his cut. The tsar takes a cut of everything.”

“How much did you have to pay him for the right to kidnap my wife?”

Ivan made no response. Gabriel pressed him to see if he could provoke another outburst of anger.

“How much, Ivan? Five million? Ten? Twenty?”

Ivan wheeled around. “I’m tired of your questions, Allon. Besides, we haven’t much farther to go. Your unmarked grave awaits you.”