Moscow Rules (34 page)

held out his hand. “I need to show you a few things before we leave.”

Elena followed him back into the villa. In her absence, the rustic wooden table had been laid with a

lovers’ banquet. Mikhail’s voice, when he spoke, had a bedroom intimacy.

“We had lunch, Elena. It was waiting on the table just like this when we arrived. Remember it,

Elena. Remember exactly how it looked.”

“When did we eat? Before or after?”

“Before,” he said with a slight smile of admiration. “You were nervous at first. You weren’t sure

you wanted to go through with it. We relaxed. We ate some good food. We drank some good wine. The

rosé did the trick.” He lifted the bottle from the ice bucket. “It’s from Bandol. Very cold. Just the way you

like it.” He poured a glass and held it out to her. “Drink a bit more, Elena. It’s important you have wine

on your breath when you go home.”

She accepted the glass and raised it to her lips.

“There’s something else you need to see,” Mikhail said. “Come with me, please.”

He led her into the larger of the villa’s two bedrooms and instructed her to sit on the unmade bed. At

his command, she took a mental photograph of the room’s contents. The chipped dresser. The wicker

rocking chair. The threadbare curtains over the single window. The pair of faded Monet prints tacked up

on either side of the bathroom door.

“I was a perfect gentleman. I was everything you could have hoped for and more. I was unselfish. I

saw to your every need. We made love twice. I wanted to make love a third time, but it was getting late

and you were tired.”

“I hope I didn’t disappoint you.”

“On the contrary.”

He stepped into the bathroom and switched on the light, then motioned for her. There was scarcely

enough room for the two of them. Their shoulders brushed as he spoke.

“You showered when we were done. That’s why you don’t smell like you’ve been making love.

Please do it now, Elena. We need to get you home to your husband.”

“Do what now?”

“Take a shower, of course.”

“A real shower?”

“Yes.”

“But we haven’t
really
made love.”

“Of course we have. Two times, in fact. I wanted to do it a third time, but it was getting late. Get in

the shower, Elena. Wet your hair a little. Smudge your makeup. Scrub your face hard so you look like

you’ve been kissed. And use soap. It’s important you go home smelling of strange soap.”

Mikhail opened the taps and slipped silently out of the room. Elena removed her clothing and

stepped naked into the water.

47 SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE

It was the part of the day that Jean-Luc liked best: the truce between lunch and dinner, when he

treated himself to a pastis and calmly prepared the battle plan for the evening. Running his eye down the

reservation sheet, he could see it was going to be an arduous night: an American rapper with an entourage

of ten, a disgraced French politician and his new child bride, an oil sheikh from one of the emirates-

Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Jean-Luc could never remember-and a shady Italian businessman who had gone to

ground in Saint-Tropez because he was under indictment in Milan. For the moment, though, the dining

room of Grand Joseph was a tranquil sea of linen, crystal, and silver, undisturbed, except for the pair of

Spanish waifs drinking quietly at the far end of the bar. And the red Audi convertible parked directly

outside the entrance, in violation of a long-standing city ordinance, not to mention countless edicts handed

down by Joseph himself.

Jean-Luc drank from his glass of pastis and took a closer look at the two occupants of the car. The

man behind the wheel was in his early thirties and was wearing an obligatory pair of Italian sunglasses.

He was attractive in a vaguely Slavic way and appeared quite pleased with himself. Next to him was a

woman, several years older but no less attractive. Her dark hair was done up in a haphazard bun. Her

dress looked slept in. Lovers, concluded Jean-Luc. No doubt about it. What’s more, he was certain he’d

seen them in the restaurant quite recently. The names would come to him eventually. They always did.

Jean-Luc had that kind of memory.

The couple talked for a moment longer before finally giving each other a kiss that put to rest any

lingering doubt over how they had spent their afternoon. It was the final kiss, apparently, for a moment

later the woman was standing alone on the sunlit cobbles of the square and the Audi was speeding off like

a getaway car leaving the scene of a crime. The woman watched it disappear around the corner, then

turned and headed toward Joseph’s entrance. It was then Jean-Luc realized that she was none other than

Elena Kharkov, wife of Ivan Kharkov, Russian oligarch and party boy. But where were her bodyguards?

And why was her hair mussed and her dress wrinkled? And why in God’s name was she kissing another

man in a red Audi in the middle of the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville?

She entered a moment later, her hips swinging a little more jauntily than usual, her handbag dangling

from her left shoulder.
“Bonsoir, Jean-Luc, ”
she sang, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary,

and Jean-Luc sang
“Bonsoir”
in return, as though he hadn’t seen her giving mouth-to-mouth to blondie

boy not thirty seconds earlier. She set the bag on the bar and yanked open the zipper, then withdrew her

mobile and reluctantly dialed a number. After murmuring a few words in Russian, she closed the phone

with an angry snap.

“Can I get you anything, Elena?” Jean-Luc asked.

“A bit of Sancerre would be nice. And a cigarette if you have one.”

“I can do the Sancerre but not the cigarette. It’s the new law. No more smoking in France.”

“What’s the world coming to, Jean-Luc?”

“Hard to say.” He scrutinized her over his pastis. “You all right, Elena?”

“Never better. But I could really use that wine.”

Jean-Luc spilled a generous measure of Sancerre into a glass, twice the usual pour, and placed it on

the bar in front of her. She was raising it to her lips when two black Mercedes sedans screeched to a stop

in the square. She glanced over her shoulder, frowned, and dropped a twenty on the bar.

“Thanks anyway, Jean-Luc.”

“It’s on the house, Elena.”

She rose to her feet and swung her bag over her shoulder, then blew him a kiss and headed defiantly

toward the door, like a freedom fighter mounting a guillotine. As she stepped outside into the sunlight, the

rear door of the first car was flung open by some immense force within and a thick arm pulled her roughly

inside. The cars then lurched forward in unison and vanished in a black blur. Jean-Luc watched them go,

then looked down at the bar and saw that Elena had neglected to take the money. He slipped it into his

pocket and raised his glass in a silent toast to her bravery.
To the women,
he thought.
Russia
’s last hope.

The prolonged and unexplained absence of the guest known as Michael Danilov had caused the most

acute crisis the Château de la Messardière had seen all summer. Search parties had been sent forth,

bushes had been rustled, authorities had been notified. Yet as he drove into the forecourt of the hotel that

evening, it was clear by his expression he had no clue of the distress he had caused. He handed his keys to

the valet and strode into the marble lobby, where his lover, the much-distressed Sarah Crawford, waited

anxiously. Those who witnessedthe blow would later attest to the purity of its sound. It was delivered by

her right hand and connected squarely with his left cheek. Because it was rendered without warning or

verbal preamble, it caught the recipient and witnesses by complete surprise-all but the two Russian

security men, employees of one Ivan Kharkov, who were drinking vodka in the far corner of the lobby

bar.

The blond man made no effort at apology or reconciliation. Instead, he climbed back into the red

Audi and headed at great speed to his favorite outdoor bar in the Old Port, where he contemplated the

tangled state of his affairs over several frigid bottles of Kronenbourg. He never saw the Russians coming;

even if he had, he was by then in no condition to do much about it. Their assault, like Sarah’s, commenced

without warning or preamble, though the damage it inflicted was far more severe. When it was over, a

waiter helped him to his feet and made an ice pack for his wounds. A gendarme strolled over to see what

the fuss was about; he took a statement and wondered if the victim wanted to press charges. “What can

you do to them?” the blond man responded. “They’re Russians.”

He spent another hour at the bar, drinking quite well on the house, then climbed back into the red

Audi and returned to the hotel. Entering his room, he found his clothing flung across the floor and a

lipstick epithet scrawled across the bathroom mirror. He remained at the hotel for one more day, licking

his numerous wounds, then climbed into his car at midnight and sped off to a destination unknown.

Management was quite pleased to see him leave.

PART THREE. THE DEFECTION

48 PARIS

The 7:28 P.M. TGV train from Marseilles eased into the Gare de Lyon ten minutes ahead of

schedule. Gabriel did not find this surprising; unionized French drivers could always shave a bit of time

off the journey when they wanted to get home early. Crossing the deserted arrivals hall with his overnight

bag in hand, he gazed up at the soaring arched ceiling. Three years earlier, the historic Paris landmark had

been severely damaged by a suicide bomber. It might have been reduced to rubble had Gabriel not

managed to kill two other terrorists before they could detonate their explosives, an act of heroism that had

briefly made him the most wanted man in all of France.

A dozen taxis were waiting in the circular drive outside the station; Gabriel walked to the Boulevard

Diderot and hailed one there instead. The address he gave the driver was several blocks away from his

true destination, which was a small apartment house on a quiet street near the Bois de Boulogne.

Confident he had not been followed, he presented himself at the door and pressed the call button for

Apartment 4B. The locks opened instantly; Gabriel mounted the stairs and climbed swiftly upward, his

suede loafers silent upon the worn runner. Reaching the fourth-floor landing, he found the door of the

apartment ajar and the unmistakable scent of Turkish tobacco on the air. He placed his fingertip against

the door and gave it a gentle push, just enough to send it gliding inward on its oiled hinges.

It had been two years since he had set foot in the safe flat, yet nothing had changed: the same drab

furniture, the same stained carpeting, the same blackout curtains over the windows. Adrian Carter and Uzi

Navot were gazing at him curiously from their seats at the cheap dinette set, as though they had just shared

a private joke they did not want him to overhear. A few seconds later, Ari Shamron came marching

through the kitchen door, a cup and saucer balanced in his hand, his ugly spectacles propped on his bald

head like goggles. He was wearing his usual uniform, khaki trousers and a white oxford cloth shirt with

the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Something about being back in the field always did wonders for

Shamron’s appearance-even if the “field” was a comfortable apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement of

Paris -and he looked fitter than he had in some time.

He paused for a moment to glare at Gabriel, then continued into the sitting room, where a cigarette

was smoldering in an ashtray on the coffee table. Gabriel arrived a few seconds sooner than Shamron and

hastily stabbed it out.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Shamron asked.

“You’re not supposed to be smoking.”

“How can I quit smoking when my most accomplished operative is planning to go to war with

Russia?” He placed his cup and saucer on the coffee table and angrily prowled the room. “You were

authorized to arrange a meeting with Elena Kharkov and, if possible, to debrief her on what she knew