The Defector (13 page)

“I have no intention of going back.”

“So how are you going to arrange a meeting with her?”

Gabriel gave the rough outlines of his plan. Shamron twirled his lighter between his fingertips while he listened: two turns to the right, two turns to the left.

“It has one flaw. You’re assuming she’ll cooperate.”

“I’m assuming nothing.”

“She’ll have to be handled carefully until you’re certain of her true loyalties.”

“And after that as well.”

“I suppose you’d like to use your old team.”

“It saves time having to get acquainted.”

“How much money is this going to cost me?”

Gabriel added coffee to Shamron’s cup and smiled. The Old Man had worked for the Office during a time when it counted every shekel, and he still acted as if operational funds came directly from his own pocket.

“A hundred thousand should cover it.”

“A hundred thousand!”

“I was going to ask for two.”

“I’ll transfer the funds into your account in Zurich tomorrow morning. As soon as you’ve established a base of operations, I’ll dispatch the team.”

“What are you going to tell Amos?”

“As little as possible.”

“And the British?”

“Leave that to me. I’ll brief them about your plans and make it clear we’ll share whatever information you discover.” Shamron paused. “You will share nicely, won’t you, Gabriel?”

“Absolutely.”

“To be honest, I’m sure they’ll be relieved we’re handling it. The last thing Downing Street wants is another confrontation with the Russians—not with the British economy on life support. They’re more interested in making sure that Russian money continues to flow into the banks of London.”

“That leaves one problem.”

“Just one?”

“Olga.”

“I’ll return her to the British tomorrow and fall on my sword on your behalf. I’ve brought along a little present for them, some chatter we’ve been picking up in Lebanon about a possible terror plot in London.”

“You can tell them about the chatter in Lebanon, Ari, but I’m afraid Olga isn’t going back to Britain anytime soon.”

“You can’t leave her here in Paris.”

“I don’t intend to. I’m taking her with me. She’s really rather good, you know.”

“Something tells me my stay in London isn’t going to be a pleasant one.” Shamron sipped his coffee. “You’d better have a word with Uzi. Whatever you do, don’t mention our conversation about your taking control of the Office. He’s not going to be thrilled about the prospect of working for you.”

“I never said I would take the job, Ari. I said I would consider it.”

“I heard you the first time. But I know you wouldn’t be leading me on, not over something as important as this.”

“I need you to do me one other favor while you’re in London.”

“What’s that?”

“I had to leave Olga’s cat with Julian Isherwood.”

Shamron began turning his lighter again. “I hate cats. And the only thing I hate worse than cats is being lied to.”

23

LAKE COMO, ITALY

LAKE COMO lies in the northeastern corner of the region of Lombardy, just a few miles from the Swiss border. Shaped like an inverted Y, it is surrounded by soaring Alpine peaks and dotted with picturesque towns and villages. One of Europe’s deepest lakes, it is also, sadly, among its most polluted. In fact, a recent study by an Italian environmental group found that bacteria levels had reached sixty-eight times the limit for safe human bathing. The culprits were antiquated lakeside sewage systems, runoff from nearby farms and vineyards, and a reduction in rainfall and mountain snowpack attributed, rightly or wrongly, to global warming. Under pressure from the local tourism industry, the government had promised dramatic action to prevent the lake from slipping past the point of no return. Most Italians weren’t holding their breath. Their government was rather like a charming rogue—good at making promises, not so good at keeping them.

To stand on the terraces of Villa Teresa, however, was to forget that the magnificent waters of Lake Como had been spoiled in any way. Indeed, at certain times of the day and under proper light and weather conditions, one could imagine there was no such thing as global warming, no wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, no worldwide financial crisis, and no possible threat looming anywhere over the ring of protective mountains. Built by a wealthy Milanese trader in the eighteenth century, the villa stood on its own small peninsula. It was three floors in height, tawny orange in color, and accessible only by boat—a fact that Herr Heinrich Kiever, chief operating officer of Matrix Technologies of Zug, Switzerland, found highly appealing.

Herr Kiever, it seemed, was looking for a private retreat where his employees could complete work on a major project free from distractions and in a setting that would inspire greatness. After a brief tour, he declared Villa Teresa perfection itself. The contracts were signed over coffee in the town of Laglio, home of an American movie star whose highly publicized presence in Como was, in the opinion of many longtime habitués, the worst thing to happen to the lake since the invention of the gasoline-powered engine. Herr Kiever paid the entire lease with a certified check drawn on his bank in Zurich. He then informed the rental agent he required complete privacy, meaning no maid service, no cooks, and no follow-up calls from the agency. If there were any problems, he explained, the agent would be the first to know.

Herr Kiever took up residence in the villa that same afternoon along with two women. One was a striking brunette with a face like a Russian icon; the other, an attractive Italian accompanied by a pair of matching bodyguards. Unbeknownst to the rental agency, Herr Kiever and the bodyguards had a brief but heated argument before conducting a meticulous sweep of the property for hidden microphones or other eavesdropping equipment. Satisfied the estate was secure, they settled into their rooms and awaited the arrival of the remaining guests. There were six in all, four men and two women, and they came not from Zug but from an anonymous-looking office block on King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv. They had traveled to Europe separately under false names and with false passports in their pockets. Three landed in Rome and made the drive north; three landed in Zurich and drove south. By some miracle, they arrived at the villa’s private landing just five minutes apart. Herr Kiever, who was waiting to greet them, declared it a good omen. The six men and women withheld judgment. They had sailed under Herr Kiever’s star before and knew calm waters often gave way to storm-tossed seas with little or no warning.

So, too, did the newest addition to this illustrious band of operatives: Olga Sukhova. They knew her by name and reputation, of course, but none had ever actually met the famed Russian journalist. Gabriel saw to the introductions with a studied evasive-ness only a veteran of the secret world could summon. He provided Olga with first names but made no mention of current positions or past professional exploits. As far as Gabriel was concerned, the six individuals were blank slates, tools that had been lent to him by a higher power.

They approached her in pairs and carefully shook her hand. The women, Rimona and Dina, came first. Rimona was in her mid-thirties and had shoulder-length hair the color of Jerusalem limestone. A major in the IDF, she had worked for several years as an analyst for AMAN before transferring to the Office, where she was now part of a special Iran task force. Dina, petite and dark-haired, was an Office terrorism specialist who had personally experienced its horrors. In October 1994 she was standing in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square when a Hamas terrorist detonated his suicide belt aboard a No. 5 bus. Twenty-one people were murdered that day, including Dina’s mother and two of her sisters. Dina herself had suffered a serious leg wound and still walked with a slight limp.

Next came a pair of men in their forties, Yossi and Yaakov. Tall and balding, Yossi was currently assigned to the Russia Desk of Research, which is how the Office referred to its analytical division. He had read classics at All Souls College at Oxford and spoke with a pronounced English accent. Yaakov, a compact man with black hair and a pockmarked face, looked as if he couldn’t be bothered with books and learning. For many years he had served in the Arab Affairs Department of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, recruiting spies and informants in the West Bank and Gaza. Like Rimona, he had recently transferred to the Office and was currently running agents into Lebanon.

Next came an oddly mismatched pair who shared one common attribute. Both spoke fluent Russian. The first was Eli Lavon. An elfin figure with wispy gray hair and intelligent brown eyes, Lavon was regarded as the finest street surveillance artist the Office had ever produced. He had worked side by side with Gabriel through countless operations and was the closest thing Gabriel had to a brother. Like Gabriel, Lavon’s ties to the Office were somewhat tenuous. A professor of biblical archaeology at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, he could usually be found waist-deep in an excavation trench, sifting through the dust and artifacts of Israel’s ancient past. Twice each year, he lectured on surveillance techniques at the Academy, and he was forever being drawn out of retirement by Gabriel, who was never truly comfortable in the field without the legendary Eli Lavon watching his back.

The figure standing at Lavon’s side had eyes the color of glacial ice and a fine-boned, bloodless face. Born in Moscow to a pair of dissident Jewish scientists, Mikhail Abramov had come to Israel as a teenager within weeks of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Once described by Shamron as “Gabriel without a conscience,” he had joined the Office after serving in the Sayeret Matkal special forces, where he had assassinated several of the top terrorist masterminds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. His talents were not limited to the gun; the previous summer, in Saint-Tropez, he had infiltrated Ivan Kharkov’s entourage, along with a CIA officer named Sarah Bancroft. Of all those gathered at the villa by the lake, only Mikhail had had the distinct displeasure of actually sharing a meal with Ivan. Afterward, he admitted it was the most terrifying experience of his professional life—this coming from a man who had hunted terrorists across the badlands of the Occupied Territories.

Within the corridors and conference rooms of King Saul Boulevard, these six men and women were known by the code name “Barak”—the Hebrew word for lightning—because of their ability to gather and strike quickly. They had operated together, often under conditions of unbearable stress, on secret battlefields stretching from Moscow to Marseilles to the exclusive Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy. Usually, they conducted themselves in a highly professional manner and with few intrusions of egotism or pettiness. Occasionally, a seemingly trivial issue, such as assigning bedrooms, could provoke outbursts of childishness and flashes of ill temper. Unable to resolve the dispute themselves, they turned to Gabriel, the wise ruler, who imposed a settlement by decree and somehow managed to satisfy no one, which, in the end, they regarded as just.

After establishing a secure communications link with King Saul Boulevard, they convened for a working dinner. They ate like a family reunited, which in many respects they were, though their conversation was more circumspect than usual, owing to the presence of an outsider. Gabriel could tell by the inquisitive looks on their faces that they had heard rumors in Tel Aviv. Rumors that Amos was yesterday’s man. Rumors that Gabriel would soon be taking his rightful place in the director’s suite at King Saul Boulevard. Only Rimona, Shamron’s niece by marriage, dared to ask whether it was true. She did so in a whisper and in Hebrew, so that Olga could not understand. When Gabriel pretended not to hear, she gave him a covert kick in the ankle, a retaliatory strike only a relative of Shamron would dare undertake.

They adjourned to the great room after dinner and there, standing before a crackling fire, Gabriel conducted the first formal briefing of the operation. Grigori Bulganov, the Russian defector who had twice saved Gabriel’s life, had been abducted by Ivan Kharkov and brought to Russia, where in all likelihood he was undergoing a severe interrogation that would end with his execution. They were going to get him back, Gabriel said, and they were going to put Ivan’s operatives out of business. And their quest would begin with an extraction and interrogation of their own.

In another country, in another intelligence service, such a proposal might have been greeted with expressions of incredulity or even mockery. But not the Office. The Office had a word for such unconventional thinking: meshuggah, Hebrew for crazy or foolish. Inside the Office, no idea was too meshuggah. Sometimes, the more meshuggah, the better. It was a state of mind. It was what made the Office great.

There was something else that set them apart from other services: the freedom felt by lower-ranking officers to make suggestions and even to challenge the assumptions of their superiors. Gabriel took no offense when his team embarked on a rigorous deconstruction of the plan. Though they were an eclectic mix—indeed, most were never meant to be field agents at all—they had carried out some of the most daring and dangerous operations in Office history. They had killed and kidnapped, committed acts of fraud, theft, and forgery. They were Gabriel’s second eyes. Gabriel’s safety net.

The discussion lasted another hour. Most of it was conducted in English for Olga’s benefit, but occasionally they lapsed into Hebrew for reasons of security or because no other language would do. There were occasional flashes of temper or the odd insult, but for the most part the tone remained civil. When the last issue had been resolved, Gabriel brought the session to a close and broke the team into working groups. Yaakov and Yossi would acquire the vehicles and secure the routes. Dina, Rimona, and Chiara would prepare the cover organization and create all necessary websites, brochures, and invitations. The Russian speakers, Mikhail and Eli Lavon, would handle the interrogation itself, with Olga serving as their consultant. Gabriel had no specific task, other than to supervise and to worry. It was fitting, he thought, for it was a role Shamron had played many times before.