When he emerged from the train, he was far from the glitter of Moscow’s city center. Brownish snow covered the streets, and the apartment buildings were mostly cheap concrete left over from the Soviet era. The wind picked up and cut through his jacket and jeans. He looked at the little city map he’d brought and made his way to the Petersburg, a little one-star hotel almost in the shadow of the MKAD, the ring road that surrounded Moscow.
The hotel’s lobby was hardly warmer than the street, and the front desk was empty. Wells rang twice on a little bell before a woman in her mid-thirties wandered out. She had dark skin and a mustache and wore a puffy blue jacket against the cold.
“Yes?” she said.
“You have rooms?” Wells said.
“Of course,” she said.
She didn’t ask for his passport, but he handed it over anyway. The Lebanese this time. The room was 1,200 rubles a night, about $50, one-eighth the price of the Novotel. For that, Wells got a soft double bed and a plastic shower that ran a trickle of lukewarm water. No key-cards here. The door had a big brass lock that an experienced thief, or even a savvy twelve-year-old, could force in seconds.
Wells stowed the suitcase in the tiny closet and headed out. He would sleep at the Novotel, but he wanted to keep his options open. At an outdoor market, he bought a two-pound tub of cheap, oily peanut butter and a loaf of Russian black bread. Then he found Ultra Spa. He intended to stay as fat and dark as possible.
THE NEXT MORNING,
Wells made his way to the building that was home to Markov’s company. The offices were in the middle of the Arbat district, the center of old Moscow, a half-mile west of the Kremlin, in a refurbished apartment building two blocks down from the Canadian embassy. Two security cameras watched the front entrance. Four more monitored the edges of the building. A big man stood just outside the entrance doors, which were made of heavy dark glass like a cheap ashtray and blocked any view of the lobby. A gate to the south side protected a parking lot that held a half-dozen Mercedes and BMW sedans and a Hummer H1.
Wells didn’t break stride. Besides the Aeroflot incident, he’d drawn some tough looks on the subway. Chechen terrorists had repeatedly attacked Moscow since 2000, and Arabs were not loved here, not unless they came from Saudi Arabia and wanted to discuss how to keep the price of oil high.
Wells had arrived in Moscow with only a vague plan to get to Markov. He’d figured on finding the bars and clubs where junior FSB officers hung out, reach out to private security firms whose investigators might know Markov, grease the skids with some of the money in his briefcase. But now that he was here, the odds against that plan seemed impossibly long. As an Arab, even a Christian Arab, he was immediately distrusted. He’d need months to overcome that suspicion. If Shafer couldn’t help, Wells would be reduced to trying to break into Markov’s house or assassinate him on the street.
He e-mailed Shafer, explaining. A day later, Shafer replied with a name, phone number, and two sentences.
Nicholas Rosette. He has a temper. Don’t lie to him and don’t piss him off.
Wells and Rosette arranged to meet at a shopping mall in northern Moscow the next afternoon. “I’ll be the Frenchman in the beret,” Rosette e-mailed.
With a day to burn before the meeting, Wells wandered through central Moscow, the boulevards and narrow streets around the Kremlin. The city was loud and busy and shockingly rich. The GUM mall, which stood across Red Square from Lenin’s tomb, was filled with Hermès and Dior and Cartier and dozens of other snotty stores. The fact that $4,000 purses were being sold a hundred yards from the mummified founder of Communist Russia struck Wells as deeply ironic. But the Muscovites in the mall didn’t seem to care. They wandered happily, shopping bags heavy in their hands. Wells considered buying Exley some official Russian Olympic gear from the 2014 winter games in Sochi—he was supposed to be a tourist, after all—but changed his mind when he saw the price tag on the hat he was fingering: 2,200 rubles, almost $100. For a baseball cap. Wells checked the math three times in his head, figuring he’d made a mistake. Who was buying these trifles? And why? Russia was supposed to be poor, a broken third-world country. Oil had turned its fortunes in a hurry.
THE MALL THAT ROSETTE
had chosen for their meet was outside the downtown core, near the end of the green metro line. The place wasn’t in the same league as the GUM, but it was still plenty prosperous, with an IMAX movie theater and an array of stores that would have been familiar at any suburban mall in the United States. Though no Starbucks. For some reason, Moscow didn’t have any. Wells was meeting Rosette at the local equivalent, a place called the Coffee Bean. Wells ordered two black coffees, found a seat against a wall where he could watch the door, and waited.
And waited. Rosette showed up forty-five minutes late. Wells didn’t recognize him at first. He was in his early sixties, wearing a finely cut blue suit, his hair a distinguished silver. The beret he’d promised poked from his overcoat pocket. Wells wouldn’t have guessed he was French, but he didn’t look Russian either. German, maybe, or Swedish. Rosette took his time ordering and finally wandered over to Wells’s table. Up close, he wasn’t so impressive; he had a fleshy face and a drinker’s nose, the skin cut with thin red stripes like a contour map.
“Come,” he said to Wells in English.
They walked through the mall, a conspicuous pair. Rosette was nearly as tall as Wells, and better dressed than any other man in the mall. Wealthy Russian women dressed absurdly well—hence the luxury stores at the GUM—but the men tended to favor tracksuits and jeans.
“So why did you bring me up here?”
“I thought you might want to see Moscow, Mr. Wells,” Rosette said. “Besides, I had shopping to do.” He laughed a little French laugh,
humph-humph.
So the joke’s on me, Wells didn’t say. “Call me John.”
“Fine. Call me Nicholas. St. Nicholas.”
“Nicholas, then. Let me ask you. If you didn’t know who I was, how long would you need to figure me out?”
“Pretty soon, maybe. The hair, the tan, not bad, and it looks like you gained a few kilos, too, but it only goes so far. What’s your comic book?”
“Comic book?”
“What we French call the cover story.”
Wells explained.
“And you want to meet Ivan Markov. You know this isn’t a good idea. Did Shafer tell you about me?”
“No.”
“I’m a DGSE man”—Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the French intelligence service—“for a long time. Too long.”
“Here?”
“Here, there, everywhere. Now here again. Long enough to see the Russians go from strong to weak and back to strong. I liked them better when they were weak. All this”—Rosette looked around the mall—“brings out the worst in them. A suffering Russian is noble. A rich Russian is a pig. A pig with a Rolex who can’t even tell time.”
“If you say so.”
“Any other questions?”
“How do you know Ellis? If you care to tell.”
They’d looped around the mall and were back at the Coffee Bean. Rosette led them to a corner and sat.
“Many years ago Ellis did me a favor,” he said, quietly. The tables around them were empty, but even if they’d been full no one but Wells could have heard. “In the Congo. Though at the time it was called Zaire.”
“Shafer served in Africa?” Wells couldn’t picture Shafer anywhere but the Washington suburbs.
“He told me that one day I would repay him. I thought he was wrong. Now you come here, with your beard and your ridiculous cover. A Lebanese freedom fighter. Truly a comic book. And Shafer says it’s time for his favor. Why Markov? You think he did this attack on you and your girlfriend?”
“I want to talk to him.”
“Talk? Is that all?”
Wells shrugged.
“You’re right. I don’t want to know.” Rosette stood. “I’ll set it up. Be sure to get out fast after your talk. These men here, they aren’t nice.”
“I’m used to that.”
“Congratulations.”
“You don’t like me much, Nicholas.”
“You’re complicating my life.”
“Then why help me?”
“Not everyone in Moscow favors Markov. Some people won’t mind if your conversation with him gets heated.”
“So you’re using me.”
Rosette sat back down and leaned into Wells and pursed his thick lips. Wells immediately regretted his words.
“
I’m
using
you
?” Though Rosette’s voice stayed quiet, his fury was unmistakable. “
You
ask for
my
help and I give it to you and then you pretend I’ve wronged you. Only an American could be so stupid. You’re all the same with your false naïveté.”
Rosette exhaled heavily. Wells smelled the alcohol on his breath, heavy red wine under the coffee.
“Markov has enemies, but he has friends, too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have lasted. If it comes out that I helped you, when it comes out, I’ll be stuck in some foolish Russian squabbles that are best avoided. Not how I meant to end my career.”
“I’m sorry—”
“I haven’t finished yet, Mr. Wells. John. I’m sure you’re very good at what you do. Dressing like an Arab and playing bang-bang. Americans always want to come in with their guns and fix the world and leave. But this game you’ve stuck yourself in, it’s much trickier. It doesn’t end when you say. It goes on and on, and when you’ve forgotten you ever played at all, it comes back to destroy you.”
I’ve done all right so far,
Wells thought.
And so has the United States. And last I checked, France had a second-rate economy and a third-rate army and got attention mainly for the sex lives of its president.
But he kept his mouth shut. He’d said too much already.
Rosette stood for a second time. “Your boss, Ellis,” he said. “He saved me from Mobutu. Maybe you’ve heard of Mobutu? Maybe you skimmed a history book? Maybe you saw a documentary on him on CNN? Between the commercials?”
“You sure can lay it on thick.”
“Mobutu Sese Soko. I made a mistake with a girlfriend of his. He had so many. It was hard to keep track. And even after his men arrested me, I didn’t take it seriously. I thought being white would be my protection. But in those days Mobutu thought he was God. Maybe in Zaire he
was
God. You understand? He spoke and the rivers filled with blood. That sounds like God to me. Even being white was no guarantee. But that little Shafer saved me. To this day, I don’t know how. And I promised him I would repay him if I could. And now he asks me for this favor for you. And because Markov has enemies as well as friends, it’s possible. So I’ll vouch for you. But if Markov sees through this comic book of yours and puts a bullet in you, a whole magazine, I won’t shed any tears for you. I’ll pour a glass of burgundy and tell Shafer we’re even. Understand?”
“Clear as crystal,” Wells said.
Despite the lecture, Rosette kept his word. The following morning he e-mailed Wells to meet him at 1:30 p.m. at the ice rink at the Hermitage Gardens on Karetny Ryad Street, a mile north of the Kremlin. Wells gave himself plenty of time for countersurveillance, three subway lines, two cabs, and a long walk. He was certain he hadn’t been traced. As certain as he could be, anyway, considering he was in the home city of what was probably the best intelligence service in the world.
The Hermitage Gardens rink was easy enough to find, filled with kids and teenagers who skated endless loops to the cheery lyrics of Rihanna and the Spice Girls. Again, Rosette was a few minutes late. A countersurveillance technique, or just rudeness? Wells wasn’t sure.
“We skating?” he said when the Frenchman finally arrived.
“Alas, no.” Today Rosette was dressed down, a heavy wool coat and a thick fur hat. Now he did look Russian, at least to Wells.
They found a cab and rode in the heavy traffic for half an hour before pulling off the third ring road near a huge stadium. They made a left and a right and stopped outside a subway entrance.
They stepped out and Rosette guided Wells toward the entrance to a huge flea market. All around them women carried plastic bags filled with junk. Their faces were heavy, their skin gray under cheap fur hats, their steps exhausted. The booths of the flea market were endless, but the products weren’t. Every shopkeeper had the same dull gray pots and pans of paper-thin steel, the same dull sneakers, their color fading even before they took a single step, the same dull jeans, dyed a heavy overripe blue. Lenin’s tomb belonged here, not opposite the GUM.
“Don’t let the Ritz-Carlton and the GUM and the Bentley dealership across from the Ministry of Defense fool you,” Rosette said. “This is how most of them live. Especially outside Moscow. A million of them steal all the oil money. A few million more get rich servicing the thieves. Everyone else drinks and waits to die.”
“Sounds like fun,” Wells said.
“Not so different than America.”
“You ever been to America?”
“All right,” Rosette said. “We’ll save that for another time. Tonight you meet Roman Yansky. You know him?”
“The name, sure.” Yansky was Markov’s second-in-command, a former commander in the Spetsnaz.
“I called him this morning, gave him the comic book, the whole sad story. I said I knew your family from Beirut and that your father had been a source for me. I said that I’d recommended Helosrus to you. He wasn’t very interested until I told him that you were most assuredly stupid enough to have brought the money with you. He says he will meet you tonight at the Ten Places club but you must bring fifty thousand euros. Eleven p.m. To prove your sincerity, he said. I think he kept a straight face when he said it, but since we were on the phone I can’t be sure.”
“The Ten Places club?”
“A private place on Tverskoy. Not far from the ice skating rink where we met. Very exclusive.”