Moscow Rules (2 page)

The concierge put his teeth together and hissed contemptuously. Only a Russian could drink seven

vodkas in an hour and a half and still remain on his feet.

“What do you think?” asked Ricardo. “Mobster, spy, or hit man?”

It didn’t matter, thought Philippe gloomily. The walls of the Grand had been breached by a Russian.

Resistance
was now the order of the day. They retreated to their respective outposts, Ricardo to the grotto

of Reception, Philippe to his pulpit near the lift. Ten minutes later came the first call from Room 237.

Ricardo endured a Stalinesque tirade before murmuring a few soothing words and hanging up the phone.

He looked at Philippe and smiled.

“Monsieur Lubin was wondering when his bags might arrive.”

“I’ll see to it right away,” said Philippe, smothering a yawn.

“He was also wondering whether something could be done about the heat in his room. He says it’s

too warm, and the thermostat doesn’t seem to work.”

Philippe picked up his telephone and dialed Maintenance.

“Turn the heat up in Room 237,” he said. “Monsieur Lubin is cold.”

Had they witnessed the first few moments of Lubin’s stay, they would have felt certain in their belief

that a miscreant was in their midst. How else to explain that he removed all the drawers from the chest

and the bedside tables and unscrewed all the bulbs from the lamps and the light fixtures? Or that he

stripped bare the deluxe queen-size bed and pried the lid from the two-line message-center telephone? Or

that he poured a complimentary bottle of mineral water into the toilet and hurled a pair of chocolates by

Touvier of Geneva into the snow-filled street? Or that, having completed his rampage, he then returned

the room to the near-pristine state in which he had found it?

It was because of his profession that he took these rather drastic measures, but his profession was

not one of those suggested by Ricardo the receptionist. Aleksandr Viktorovich Lubin was neither a

mobster nor a spy, nor a hit man, only a practitioner of the most dangerous trade one could choose in the

brave New Russia: the trade of journalism. And not just any type of journalism:
independent
journalism.

His magazine,
Moskovsky Gazeta
, was one of the country’s last investigative weeklies and had been a

persistent stone in the shoe of the Kremlin. Its reporters and photographers were watched and harassed

constantly, not only by the secret police but by the private security services of the powerful oligarchs they

attempted to cover. Courchevel was now crawling with such men. Men who thought nothing of sprinkling

transmitters and poisons around hotel rooms. Men who operated by the creed of Stalin:
Death solves all

problems. No man, no problem
.

Confident the room had not been tampered with, Lubin again dialed the concierge to check on his

bags and was informed they would arrive “imminently.” Then, after throwing open the balcony doors to

the cold evening air, he settled himself at the writing desk and removed a file folder from his dog-eared

leather briefcase. It had been given to him the previous evening by Boris Ostrovsky, the
Gazeta
’s editor

in chief. Their meeting had taken place not in the
Gazeta
’s offices, which were assumed to be thoroughly

bugged, but on a bench in the Arbatskaya Metro station.

I’m only going to give you part of the picture
, Ostrovsky had said, handing Lubin the documents

with practiced indifference.
It’s for your own protection. Do you understand, Aleksandr?
Lubin had

understood perfectly. Ostrovsky was handing him an assignment that could get him killed.

He opened the file now and examined the photograph that lay atop the dossier. It showed a well-

dressed man with cropped dark hair and a prizefighter’s rugged face standing at the side of the Russian

president at a Kremlin reception. Attached to the photo was a thumb-nail biography-wholly unnecessary,

because Aleksandr Lubin, like every other journalist in Moscow, could recite the particulars of Ivan

Borisovich Kharkov’s remarkable career from memory.
Son of a senior KGB off icer… graduate of the

prestigious Moscow State University… boy wonder of the KGB’s Fifth Main Directorate…
As the

empire was crumbling, Kharkov had left the KGB and earned a fortune in banking during the anarchic

early years of Russian capitalism. He had invested wisely in energy, raw materials, and real estate, and

by the dawn of the millennium had joined Moscow ’s growing cadre of newly minted multimillionaires.

Among his many holdings was a shipping and air freight company with tentacles stretching across the

Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The true size of his financial empire was impossible for an outsider to

estimate. A relative newcomer to capitalism, Ivan Kharkov had mastered the art of the front company and

the corporate shell.

Lubin flipped to the next page of the dossier, a glossy magazine-qualityphotograph of “Château

Kharkov,” Ivan’s winter palace on the rue de Nogentil in Courchevel.

He spends the winter holiday there along with every other rich and famous Russian,
Ostrovsky

had said.
Watch your step around the house. Ivan’s goons are all former Spetsnaz and OMON. Do you

hear what I’m saying to you, Aleksandr? I don’t want you to end up like Irina Chernova
.

Irina Chernova was the famous journalist from the
Gazeta
’s main rival who had exposed one of

Kharkov ’s shadier investments. Two nights after the article appeared, she had been shot to death by a

pair of hired assassins in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. Ostrovsky, for reasons known

only to him, had included a photograph of her bullet-riddled body in the dossier. Now, as then, Lubin

turned it over quickly.

Ivan usually operates behind tightly closed doors. Courchevel is one of the few places where he

actually moves around in public. We want you to follow him, Aleksandr. We want to know who he’s

meeting with. Who he’s skiing with. Who he’s taking to lunch. Get pictures when you can, but never

approach him. And don’t tell anyone in town where you work. Ivan’s security boys can smell a

reporter a mile away.

Ostrovsky had then handed Lubin an envelope containing airline tickets, a rental car reservation, and

hotel accommodations.
Check in with the office every couple of days
, Ostrovsky had said.
And try to

have some fun, Aleksandr. Your colleagues are all very jealous. You get to go to Courchevel and party

with the rich and famous while we freeze to death in Moscow
.

On that note, Ostrovsky had risen to his feet and walked to the edge of the platform. Lubin had

slipped the dossier into his briefcase and immediately broken into a drenching sweat. He was sweating

again now.
The damn heat!
The furnace was still blazing away. He was starting to reach for the telephone

to lodge another complaint when finally he heard the knock. He covered the length of the short entrance

hall in two resentful strides and flung open the door without bothering to ask who was on the other side.
A

mistake,
he thought immediately, for standing in the semidarkness of the corridor was a man of medium

height, dressed in a dark ski jacket, a woolen cap, and mirrored goggles.

Lubin was wondering why anyone would wear goggles inside a hotel at night when the first blow

came, a vicious sideways chop that seemed to crush his windpipe. The second strike, a well-aimed kick

to the groin, caused his body to bend in half at the waist. He was able to emit no protest as the man

slipped into the room and closed the door soundlessly behind him. Nor was he able to resist when the

man forced him onto the bed and sat astride his hips. The knife that emerged from the inside of the ski

jacket was the type wielded by elite soldiers. It entered Lubin’s abdomen just below the ribs and plunged

upward toward his heart. As his chest cavity filled with blood, Lubin was forced to suffer the additional

indignity of watching his own death reflected in the mirrored lenses of his killer’s goggles. The assassin

released his grip on the knife and, with the weapon still lodged in Lubin’s chest, rose from the bed and

calmly collected the dossier. Aleksandr Lubin felt his heart beat a final time as his killer slipped silently

from the room.
The heat
, he was thinking.
The damn heat…

It was shortly after seven when Philippe finally collected Monsieur Lubin’s bags from storage and

loaded them onto the lift. Arriving at Room 237, he found the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from the

latch. In accordance with the conventions of Plan B, he gave the door three thunderous knocks. Receiving

no reply, he drew his passkey from his pocket and entered, just far enough to see two size-twelve Russian

loafers hanging a few inches off the end the bed. He left the bags in the entrance hall and returned to the

lobby, where he delivered a report of his findings to Ricardo.

"Passed out drunk.”

The Spaniard glanced at his watch. “It’s early, even for a Russian. What now?”

“We’ll let him sleep it off. In the morning, when he’s good and hungover, we’ll initiate Phase Two.”

The Spaniard smiled. No guest had ever survived Phase Two. Phase Two was always fatal.

2 UMBRIA, ITALY

The Villa dei Fiori, a thousand-acre estate in the rolling hills between the Tiber and Nera rivers, had

been a possession of the Gasparri family since the days when Umbria was still ruled by the popes. There

was a large and lucrative cattle operation and an equestrian center that bred some of the finest jumpers in

all of Italy. There were pigs no one ate and a flock of goats kept solely for entertainment value. There

were khaki-colored fields of hay, hillsides ablaze with sunflowers, olive groves that produced some of

Umbria ’s best oil, and a small vineyard that contributed several hundred pounds of grapes each year to

the local cooperative. On the highest part of the land lay a swath of untamed woods where it was not safe

to walk because of the wild boar. Scattered round the estate were shrines to the Madonna, and, at an

intersection of three dusty gravel roads, stood an imposing wood-carved crucifix. Everywhere, there

were dogs: a quartet of hounds that roamed the pastures, devouring fox and rabbit, and a pair of neurotic

terriers that patrolled the perimeter of the stables with the fervor of holy warriors.

The villa itself stood at the southern edge of the property and was reached by a long gravel drive

lined with towering umbrella pine. In the eleventh century, it had been a monastery. There was still a

small chapel, and, in the walled interior courtyard, the remains of an oven where the brothers had baked

their daily bread. The doors to the courtyard were fashioned of heavy wood and iron and looked as

though they had been built to withstand pagan assault. At the base of the house was a large swimming

pool, and adjacent to the pool was a trellised garden where rosemary and lavender grew along walls of

Etruscan stone.

Count Gasparri, a faded Italian nobleman with close ties to the Vatican, did not rent the villa; nor did

he make a habit of lending it to friends and relatives, which was why the staff were surprised by the news

that they would be playing host to a long-term guest. “His name is Alessio Vianelli,” the count informed

Margherita, the housekeeper, by telephone from his office in Rome. “He’s working on a special project

for the Holy Father. You’re not to disturb him. You’re not to talk to him. But, most important, you are not

to tell a soul he’s there. As far as you’re concerned, this man is a nonperson. He does not exist.”

“And where shall I put this nonperson?” asked Margherita.

“In the master suite, overlooking the swimming pool. And remove everything from the drawing room,

including the paintings and the tapestries. He plans to use it as his work space.”

“Everything?”

“
Every
thing.”

“Will Anna be cooking for him?”

“I’ve offered her services, but, as yet, have received no answer.”

“Will he be having any guests?”

“It is not outside the realm of possibility.”

“What time should we expect him?”

“He refuses to say. He’s rather vague, our Signore Vianelli.”

As it turned out, he arrived in the dead of night-sometime after three, according to Margherita, who

was in her room above the chapel at the time and woke with the sound of his car. She glimpsed him

briefly as he stole across the courtyard in the moonlight, a dark-haired man, thin as a rail, with a duffel

bag in one hand and a Maglite torch in the other. He used the torch to read the note she had left at the

entrance of the villa, then slipped inside with the air of a thief stealing into his own home. A moment

later, a light came on in the master bedroom, and she could see him prowling restlessly about, as though

looking for a lost object. He appeared briefly in the window, and, for several tense seconds, they gazed at