Moscow Rules (50 page)

photographers have been killed in Russia since 1992, making it the third-deadliest country in the world in

which to practice the craft of journalism, after Iraq and Algeria. Fourteen of those deaths occurred during

the rule of Russian president Vladimir Putin, who undertook a systematic crack-down on press freedom

and political dissent after coming to power in 1999. Virtually all the murders were contract killings, and

few have been solved or prosecuted.

The most famous Russian reporter murdered during the rule of Vladimir Putin was Anna

Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment house in October 2006. A

vocal critic of the regime, Politkovskaya was about to publish a searing exposé detailing allegations of

torture and kidnapping by the Russian military and security forces in Chechnya. Putin dismissed Anna

Politkovskaya as a person of “marginal significance” and did not bother to attend her funeral. No one

connected to the Kremlin did.

Six months after Politkovskaya’s murder, Ivan Safronov, a highly respected military affairs writer

for the
Kommersant
newspaper, was found dead in the courtyard of his Moscow apartment building.

Russian police claimed he committed suicide by jumping from a fifth-floor window, even though he

resided on the third floor. While conducting research in Moscow, I learned Safronov had telephoned his

wife on the way home to say he was stopping to buy some oranges, hardly the act of a suicidal man. The

oranges were later found scattered in the stairwell between the fourth and fifth floors, along with

Safronov’s cap. According to witnesses, Safronov was alive for several minutes after the fall and even

attempted to stand. He would not survive the uncaring ineptitude of Moscow ’s ambulance service, which

took thirty minutes to dispatch help. The “attendants” assumed Safronov had fallen from an open window

in a drunken stupor. An autopsy found no trace of alcohol or drugs in his system.

If the brutal death of Ivan Safronov was an act of murder rather than suicide, then why was he killed

and by whom? Like Anna Politkovskaya,Ivan Safronov had apparently uncovered information that

Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin did not want the rest of the world to know: specifically, that Russia intended to

sell advanced fighter jets and missiles to its two pariah allies in the Middle East, Iran and Syria. In order

to provide the Kremlin with plausible deniability it played any part in the sale, the deal was reportedly

set to be conducted through an arms dealer in Belarus. Safronov is said to have confirmed details of the

sale during a trip to the Middle East in the days before his death.

The promiscuity of Russian arms sales in the Middle East has been well documented. So, too, have

the activities of “private” Russian arms traffickers. One such man is Viktor Bout. Often referred to as “the

merchant of death” and the world’s most notorious gunrunner, Bout is alleged to have sold weapons to a

diverse set of clients that include the likes of Hezbollah, the Taliban, and even elements of al-Qaeda. In

2006, the U.S. Treasury Department seized some of Bout’s aircraft and froze his assets. In March 2008, as

I was finishing this manuscript, he was arrested in a luxury Bangkok hotel in an American-led sting

operation. He is accused of offering to sell millions of dollars’ worth of weaponry to the FARC rebels of

Colombia, including advanced shoulder-launch antiaircraft missiles. At the time of this writing, he sits in

a Thai jail cell, awaiting legal proceedings and possible extradition to the United States to face charges.

Finally, a note on the title. Many of us first became familiar with the term “Moscow Rules” when we

read John le Carré’s classic novel of espionage,
Smiley’s People.
Though the brilliant Mr. le Carré

invented much of the lexicon of his spies, the Moscow Rules were indeed a real set of Cold War

operating principles and remain so today, even though the Cold War is supposedly a thing of the past. One

can find written versions of the rules in various forms and in various places, though the CIA apparently

has never gone to the trouble of actually placing them on paper. I am told by an officer in the Agency’s

national clandestine service that the rule quoted in the epigraph of this novel is accurate and is drilled into

American spies throughout their training. Unfortunately, the journalists of Russia are now forced to

operate by a similar set of guidelines-at least the ones who dare to question the new masters of the

Kremlin.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel, like the previous books in the Gabriel Allon series, could not have been written without

the assistance of David Bull, who truly is among the finest art restorers in the world. Usually, David

advises me on how to clean paintings. This time, however, he taught me how a man as gifted as Gabriel

might forge one in a hurry. The technique Gabriel used for creating craquelure is a highly abbreviated

version of the method developed by Han van Meegeren, a Dutchman often described as the greatest forger

in history.

I am indebted to several courageous Russian journalists in Moscow who generously shared with me

some of their experiences. For obvious reasons, I cannot name them here, but I stand in awe of both their

courage and their dedication to freedoms we in the West take for granted. Jim Maceda of NBC News was

an invaluable resource, as was Jonathan, who took me to corners of the Old Arbat I would have never

found on my own. My Russian guides in St. Petersburg and Moscow gave my family the trip of a lifetime,

while Tanya showed me the soul of a Leningrad girl. A very special thanks to the FSB colonel who

walked me through the corridors of Lubyanka. Also, to my driver in Moscow, who poetically said of the

Russians: “We cannot live as normal people.” I did not realize it then but he gave me the spine of a novel.

Several Israeli and American intelligence officers spoke to me on background, and I thank them now

in anonymity, which is how they would prefer it. A special thanks to J, who chose to serve his country in

secret rather than use his brilliant mind to make money. We are all in his debt.

A very senior administration official generously briefed me on his own experiences dealing with the

new Russia and encouraged me every step of the way. Former president George H. W. Bush, Mrs.

Barbara Bush, and Jean Becker, their amazing chief of staff, offered much support and gave me an

invaluable glimpse of what it is like to entertain a visiting head of state. Roger Cressey talked to me about

real-life Russian arms dealers and explained how I might take down a portion of the Moscow telephone

system. David Zara of Tradewind Aviation helped me steal an oligarch’s airplane. Deepest gratitude to

the Astoria Hotel in St. Petersburg, the Savoy Hotel in Moscow, the Métropole Hotel in Geneva, the

Hôtel les Grandes Alpes in Courchevel, and the Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez. Please

forgive any complaints by my characters; they are a surly lot who travel far too much. Also, I am forever

grateful to the staff of an isolated cattle farm in the hills of Umbria. They gave my family, and my

characters, a glorious summer none of us will ever forget.

I consulted hundreds of books, newspaper and magazine articles, and websites while preparing this

manuscript, far too many to name here. I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention the extraordinary

scholarship and reporting of Robert Service, Peter Baker, Susan Glasser, David E. Hoffman, David

Remnick, Alex Goldfarb, Marina Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya, Hedrick Smith, Peter Landesman,

Douglas Farah, Stephen Braun, and Anne Appelbaum. Anne’s columns inspired me, and her Pulitzer

prizewinning book,
Gulag,
is an unforgettable reminder of what lies buried in the not-so-distant Russian

past.

Chris Donovan gave me a research packet from heaven. Louis Toscano made countless

improvements to the manuscript, as did my copy editors, Tony Davis and Kathy Crosby. A special thanks

to the remarkable team at Putnam, especially Neil Nyren, Marilyn Ducksworth, and Ivan Held, who

graciously allowed me to borrow his first name for my villain. It goes without saying that none of this

would have been possible without their support, but I shall say it in any case. You are all simply the best

in the business.

We are blessed with many friends who fill our lives with love and laughter at critical junctures

during the writing year, especially Henry and Stacey Winkler, Andrea and Tim Collins, Greg Craig and

Derry Noyes, Enola Aird and Stephen L. Carter, Lisa Myers and Marcia Harrison, Mitch Glazer and

Kelly Lynch, and Jane and Burt Bacharach. I listened constantly to “Painted from Memory,” Burt’s

brilliant collaboration with Elvis Costello, while finishing the manuscript, and even managed to slip the

title into the final chapter. The members of “the Peloton” were great friends and company during a long

hard winter of writing. My study partners-David Gregory, Jeffrey Goldberg, Steven Weisman, Martin

Indyk, Franklin Foer, Noah Oppenheim, and Erica Brown-kept my heart focused on what is truly

important, even if my thoughts were sometimes elsewhere.

I wish to extend the deepest gratitude and love to my children, Lily and Nicholas, who were at my

side throughout this journey, as they have been from the beginning. Finally, my wife, Jamie Gangel, helped

find the essence of the story when it eluded me and skillfully edited my early drafts. Were it not for her

patience, attention to detail, and forbearance,
Moscow Rules
would not have been completed. My debt to

her is immeasurable, as is my love.

Daniel Silva

He has been placed in the same category as John le Carré and Graham Greene. He has been called

his generation’s finest writer of international intrigue and one of the greatest American spy novelists ever.

Compelling, passionate, haunting, brilliant: these are the words that have been used to describe the work

of
Daniel Silva
.

Silva burst onto the scene in 1997 with his electrifying bestselling debut,
The Unlikely Spy
, a novel

of love and deception set around the Allied invasion of France in World War II. His second and third

novels,
The Mark of the Assassin
and
The Marching Season
, were also instant
New York Times

bestsellers and starred two of Silva’s most memorable characters: CIA officer Michael Osbourne and

international hit man Jean-Paul Delaroche. But it was Silva’s fourth novel,
The Kill Artist, that
would

alter the course of his career. The novel featured a character described as one of the most memorable and

compelling in contemporary fiction, the art restorer and sometime Israeli secret agent Gabriel Allon, and

though Silva did not realize it at the time, Gabriel’s adventures had only just begun. Gabriel Allon

appeared in Silva’s next four novels, each one more successful than the last:
The English Assassin
,
The

Confessor
,
A Death in Vienna
, and
Prince of Fire
. The sixth Gabriel Allon novel,
The Messenger
, will

be published in July 2006.

Silva knew from a very early age that he wanted to become a writer, but his first profession would

be journalism. Born in Michigan, raised and educated in California, he was pursuing a master’s degree in

international relations when he received a temporary job offer from United Press International to help

cover the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Later that year Silva abandoned his

studies and joined UPI fulltime, working first in San Francisco, then on the foreign desk in Washington,

and finally as Middle East correspondent in Cairo and the Persian Gulf. In 1987, while covering the Iran-

Iraq war, he met NBC correspondent Jamie Gangel. They were married later that year. Silva returned to

Washington and went to work for CNN. In 1994 Jamie gave birth to a set of twins, Lily and Nicholas.