Moscow Rules (40 page)

mother picked up the letter and touched it to the flame. Elena gazed at the television and saw Russia ’s

new tsar accepting the adulation of the masses.
We cannot live as normal people,
she thought.
And we

never will.

Against all his considered judgment and in violation of all operational doctrine, written and

unwritten, Gabriel did not immediately return to his room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Instead, he wandered

farther south, to the colony of apartment houses looming over October Square, and made his way to the

building known to the locals as the House of Dogs. It had no view of the Moscow River or the Kremlin-

only of its identical neighbor, and of a parking lot filled with shabby little cars, and of the Garden Ring, a

euphemism if there ever was one, which thundered night and day on its northern flank. A biting wind was

blowing out of the north, a reminder that the Russian “summer” had come and gone and that soon it would

be winter again. The poet in him thought it appropriate. Perhaps there never had been a summer at all, he

thought. Perhaps it had been an illusion, like the dream of Russian democracy.

In the small courtyard outside Entrance C, it appeared that the babushkas and the skateboard punks

had declared a cessation of hostilities. Six skinny Militia boys were milling about in the doorway itself,

watched over by two plainclothes FSB toughs in leather jackets. The Western reporters who had gathered

at the building after the attempt on Olga Sukhova’s life had given up their vigil or, more likely, had been

chased away. Indeed, there was no evidence of support for Olga’s cause, other than two desperate words,

written in red spray paint, on the side of the building: FREE OLGA! A local wit had crossed out the word

FREE and replaced it with FUCK
.
And who said the Russians didn’t have a sense of humor?

Gabriel walked around the enormous building and, as expected, found security men standing watch at

the other five entrances as well. Hiking north along the Leninsky Prospekt, he ran through the operation

one final time. It was perfect, he thought. With one glaring exception. When Ivan Kharkov discovered his

family and his secret papers had been stolen, he was going to take it out on someone. And that someone

was likely to be Olga Sukhova.

56 SAINT-TROPEZ, MOSCOW

The undoing of Ivan Borisovich Kharkov, real estate developer, venture capitalist, and international

arms trafficker, began with a phone call. It was placed to his Saint-Tropez residence by one François

Boisson, regional director of the Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile, the French aviation authority. It

appeared, said Monsieur Boisson, that there was a rather serious problem regarding recent flights by

Monsieur Kharkov’s airplane-problems, the director said ominously, that could not be discussed over the

telephone. He then instructed Monsieur Kharkov to appear at Nice airport at one that afternoon to answer

a few simple questions. If Monsieur Kharkov chose not to appear, his plane would be confiscated and

held for a period of at least ninety days. After an anti-French tirade lasting precisely one minute and

thirty-seven seconds, Ivan promised to come at the appointed hour. Monsieur Boisson said he looked

forward to the meeting and rang off.

Elena Kharkov learned of her husband’s predicament when she telephoned Villa Soleil to wish Ivan

and the children a pleasant morning. Confronted with Ivan’s rage, she made a few soothing comments and

assured him it had to be a misunderstanding of some sort. She then had a brief conversation with Sonia,

during which she instructed the nanny to take the children to the beach. When Sonia asked whether Elena

needed to speak to Ivan again, Elena hesitated, then said that, yes, she did need to speak to him. When

Ivan came back on the line, she told him that she loved him very much and was looking forward to seeing

him that night. But Ivan was still carrying on about his airplane and the incompetence of the French. Elena

murmured,
“Dos vidanya,
Ivan,” and severed the connection.

Gabriel was a man of unnatural patience, but now, during the final tedious hours before their assault

on Ivan’s vault of secrets, his patience abandoned him. It was fear, he thought. The kind of fear only

Moscow can produce. The fear that someone was always watching. Always listening. The fear that he

might find himself in Lubyanka once again and that this time he might not come out alive. The fear that

others might join him there and suffer the same fate.

He attempted to suppress his fear with activity. He walked streets he loathed, ordered an elaborate

lunch he barely touched, and, in the glittering GUM shopping mall near Red Square, purchased souvenirs

he would leave behind. He performed these tasks alone; apparently, the FSB had no interest in Martin

Stonehill, naturalized American citizen of Hamburg, Germany.

Finally, at 2:30 P.M., he returned to his room at the Ritz-Carlton and dressed for combat. His only

weapons were a miniature radio and a PDA. At precisely 3:03 P.M., he boarded an elevator and rode

down to the lobby. He paused briefly at the concierge’s desk to collect a handful of brochures and maps,

then came whirling out the revolving door into Tverskaya Street. After walking a half block, he stopped

and thrust his hand toward the street, as if hailing a taxi. A silver Volga sedan immediately pulled to the

curb. Gabriel climbed inside and closed the door.

“Shalom,”
said the man behind the wheel.

“Let’s hope so.”

Gabriel looked at his watch as the car shot forward:
3:06…

Time for one last good-bye, Elena. Time to get in the car.

Elena Kharkov slipped quietly into the guest bedroom and began to pack. The mere act of folding her

clothing and placing it into her bag did much to calm her raw nerves and so she performed this chore with

far more care than was warranted. At 3:20, she dialed the number of Sonia’s mobile phone. Receiving no

answer, she was nearly overcome by a wave of panic. She dialed the number a second time- slowly,

deliberately-and this time Sonia answered after three rings. In the most placid voice Elena could summon,

she informed Sonia the children had had enough sun and that it was time to leave the beach. Sonia offered

mild protest-the children, she said, were the happiest they had been in many days-but Elena insisted.

When the call was over, she switched on the device that looked like an ordinary MP3 player and placed it

in the outer compartment of her overnight bag. Then she dialed Sonia’s number again. This time, the call

wouldn’t go through.

She finished packing and slipped into her mother’s bedroom. The money was where she had left it,

in the bottom of the dresser, concealed beneath a heavy woolen sweater. She closed the drawer silently

and went into the sitting room. Her mother looked at Elena and attempted to smile. They had nothing more

to say-they had said it all last night-and no more tears to cry.

“You’ll have some tea before you leave?”

“No, Mama. There isn’t time.”

“Go, then,” she said. “And may the angel of the Lord be looking over your shoulder.”

A bodyguard, a former Alpha Group operative named Luka Osipo, was waiting for Elena outside in

the corridor. He carried her suitcase downstairs and placed it in the trunk of a waiting limousine. As the

car pulled away from the curb, Elena announced calmly that she needed to make a brief stop at the House

on the Embankment to collect some papers from her husband’s office. “I’ll just be a moment or two,” she

said. “We’ll still have plenty of time to get to Sheremetyevo in time for my flight.”

As Elena Kharkov’s limousine sped along the Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a second car was following

carefully after it. Behind the wheel was a man named Anton Ulyanov. A former government surveillance

specialist, he now worked for Arkady Medvedev, chief of Ivan Kharkov’s private security service.

Ulyanov had performed countless jobs for Medvedev, most of questionable ethics, but never had he been

ordered to watch the wife of the man who paid his salary. He did not know why he had been given this

assignment, only that it was important.
Follow her all the way to the airport,
Medvedev had told him.

And don’t lose sight of her. If you do, you’ll wish you’d never been born.

Ulyanov settled fifty yards behind the limousine and switched on some music. Nothing to do now but

make himself comfortable and take a nice, boring drive to Sheremetyevo. Those were the kind of jobs he

liked best: the boring jobs. Leave the excitement to the heroes, he was fond of saying. One tended to live

longer that way.

As it turned out, the journey would be neither long nor boring. Indeed, it would end at the Ukraina

Hotel. The offending car came from Ulyanov’s right, though later he would be forced to admit he never

saw it. He was able to recall the moment of impact, though: a violent collision of buckling steel and

shattering glass that sent his air bag exploding into his face. How long he was unconscious was never

clear to him. He reckoned it was only a few seconds, because his first memory of the aftermath was the

vision of a well-dressed man yelling through a blown-out window in a language he did not understand.

Anton Ulyanov did not try to communicate with the man. Instead, he began a desperate search for his

mobile phone. He found it a moment later, wedged between the passenger seat and the crumpled door.

The first call he made was to the Sparrow Hills apartment of Arkady Medvedev.

Upon his arrival at Côte d’Azur International Airport, Ivan Kharkov was escorted into a windowless

conference room with a rectangular table and photographs of French-built aircraft on the wall. The man

who had summoned him, François Boisson, was nowhere to be seen; indeed, a full thirty minutes would

elapse before Boisson finally appeared. A slender man in his fifties with small eyeglasses and a bald

head, he carried himself, like all French bureaucrats, with an air of condescending authority. Offering

neither explanation nor apology for his tardiness, he placed a thick file at the head of the conference table

and settled himself behind it. He sat there for an uncomfortably long period, fingertips pressed

thoughtfully together, before finally bringing the proceedings to order.

“Two days ago, after your aircraft was refused permission to take off from this airport, we began a

careful review of your flight records and passenger manifests. Unfortunately, in the process we have

discovered some serious discrepancies.”

“What sort of discrepancies?”

“It is our conclusion, Monsieur Kharkov, that you have been operating your aircraft as an illegal

charter service. Unless you can prove to us that is not the case-and, I must stress, in France the burden of

proof in such matters is entirely on
you
-then I’m afraid your aircraft will be confiscated immediately.”

“Your accusation is complete nonsense,” Ivan countered.

Boisson sighed and slowly lifted the cover of his impressive file. The first item he produced was a

photograph of a Boeing Business Jet. “For the record, Monsieur Kharkov, is this your aircraft?” He

pointed to the registration number on the aircraft’s tail. “N7287IK?”

“Of course it’s my plane.”

Boisson touched the first character of the tail number: the
N.
“Your aircraft carries American

registry,” he pointed out. “When was the last time it was in the United States?”

“I couldn’t say for certain. Three years at least.”

“Do you not find that odd, Monsieur Kharkov?”

“No, I do not find it the least bit odd. As you well know, Monsieur Boisson, aircraft owners carry

American registry because American registry ensures a high resale value.”

“But according to your own records, Monsieur, you are
not
the owner of N7287IK.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your own aircraft registration lists the owner of N7287IK as a Delaware-based firm called, oddly

enough, N7287 LLC. Obviously, N7287 LLC is a corporate shell maintained for no other reason than to

give your plane the illusion of American ownership. Technically, you have no relationship with this

company. The president of N7287 LLC is a man named Charles Hamilton. Monsieur Hamilton is an

attorney in Wilmington, Delaware. He is also the owner by proxy of the aircraft you claim is yours.

Monsieur Hamilton actually leases the plane to you. Isn’t that correct, Monsieur Kharkov?”

“Technically,”
snapped Ivan, “that
is
correct, but these sorts of arrangements are common in private

aviation.”

“Common, perhaps, but not entirely honest. Before we continue with this inquiry, I must insist you

prove that you are the actual owner of the Boeing Business Jet with the tail number N7287IK. Perhaps the

easiest way for you to do that would be to telephone your attorney and put him on the phone with me?”

“But it’s Sunday morning in America.”

“Then I suspect he’ll be at home.”

Ivan swore in Russian and picked up his mobile phone. The call failed to go through. After two more