Moscow Rules

And Ukraine is to the right. Look at the sign.”
     
     
    “We have a couple of errands to run before we leave.”
     
     
    “Where?”
     
     
    Gabriel pointed to the left.
     
     
    MOCKBA ...
     

 
    68
     
     
    MOSCOW
     
     
    On the outskirts of Moscow was a supermarket that never closed. If it was not the world’s largest supermarket, thought Gabriel, then it was surely a close second: two acres of frozen foods, a mile of cookies and crackers, another mile of American soft drinks, one nightmarish wall hung with thousands of pork sausages. And that was just the food. At the far end of the market was a section called Home and Garden, where one could buy everything from clothing to motorcycles to lawn tractors. Who in Moscow needed a lawn tractor? thought Gabriel. Who in Moscow even had a lawn? “They’re for the dachas, ” Elena explained. “Now that Russians have money, they don’t like to dig with their hands anymore.” She shrugged. “But what’s the point of having a dacha if you don’t get your hands dirty?”
     
     
    Why the market remained open all night was a mystery because at 2 A.M. it was deserted. They walked the endless prospekts of consumer goods, quickly pulling items from the shelves: clean clothing, bandages and antiseptic, a pair of large sunglasses, enough snack food and cola to fuel an early-morning road trip. When they wheeled their cart up to the checkout stand, the drowsy female clerk looked at Gabriel’s eye and winced. Elena contemptuously explained that her “husband” had crashed his car in a ditch—drunk out of his mind on vodka, of course. The checkout woman shook her head sadly as she rang up the items. “Russian men,” she muttered. “They never change.”
     
     
    Gabriel carried the bags out to the car and climbed into the back again with Elena. Bulganov, alone in the front, told them a story as he drove toward central Moscow. It was the story of a young KGB officer who never truly believed the lies of Lenin and Stalin and who had quietly raised a glass of vodka when the empire of deception finally fell. This young officer had tried to resign after the collapse of communism but had been convinced by his mentor to stay on and help turn the KGB into a truly professional service. He had reluctantly agreed and had quickly risen through the ranks of the KGB’s domestic successor, the FSB, only to see it deteriorate into something worse than the KGB had been. This young man, at great personal risk, had then joined forces with a group of officers who hoped to reform the FSB. Quietly, said Bulganov. From the inside. But they soon realized that the top brass and their masters in the Kremlin were not interested in reform. So the group went underground. And started building a dossier.
     
     
    “Our dossier does not paint a pretty picture. FSB involvement in murder for hire, prostitution, and narcotics. FSB involvement in the operations of shady oligarchs. And worse. Who do you think planned and carried out those apartment house bombings that our president used to justify going back into Chechnya? My service is a criminal enterprise from top to bottom. And it is running Russia.”
     
     
    “How did I end up on your plate that night in Lubyanka?”
     
     
    “Ironically, it was all by the book. We were watching you from the moment you hit the ground in St. Petersburg. And I must admit, you were quite good. We had no suspicions, even after you initiated contact with Olga Sukhova. We thought you were Natan Golani of the Israeli Ministry of Culture.”
     
     
    “So you didn’t know Arkady and Ivan were going to have us killed that night?”
     
     
    “No, not at all. At first, I thought you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when you survived the attack and saved Olga, that caused Ivan a serious problem. I almost lost you during your detention in Lubyanka. Ivan Kharkov himself was on the phone to the chief. He knew your real name and your real job. He wanted you taken out into a field and shot. The top floor ordered me to do just that. I pretended to go along and started stalling for time. Then, thankfully, your service made such a stink, you became too hot, even for the likes of Ivan Kharkov.”
     
     
    “How did you convince them not to kill me?”
     
     
    “I told them that it would be a public-relations disaster if you died in FSB custody. I told them I didn’t care what Ivan did to you once you left the country, but they couldn’t lay a