Moscow Rules

piazza. “But, then, we have a bit of history here ourselves, don’t we, Gabriel? In a way, this is where it began for the two of us.”
     
     
    “It began in Munich , Eli, not Rome.”
     
     
    “I can still smell that damn fig wine he was carrying when you shot him. Do you remember the wine, Gabriel?”
     
     
    “I remember, Eli.”
     
     
    “Even now, the smell of figs turns my stomach.” Lavon took a bite of the fish. “We’re not going to kill anyone today, are we, Gabriel?”
     
     
    “Not today, Eli. Today, we just talk.”
     
     
    “You have a picture?”
     
     
    Gabriel removed the photograph from his shirt pocket and placed it on the table. Lavon shoved on a pair of smudged half-moon reading glasses and scrutinized the image carefully.
     
     
    “These Russians all look the same to me.”
     
     
    “I’m sure they feel the same way about you.”
     
     
    “I know exactly how they feel about me. Russians made the lives of my ancestors so miserable that they chose to live beside a malarial swamp in Palestine instead. They supported the creation of Israel to begin with, but in the sixties they threw in their lot with those who were sworn to destroy us. The Russians like to portray themselves as allies of the West in the war against international terrorism, but we should never forget they helped to create international terrorism in the first place. They encouraged leftist terror groups across Western Europe in the seventies and eighties, and, of course, they were the patron saints of the PLO. They gave Arafat and his killers all the weapons and explosives they wanted, along with freedom of movement behind the Iron Curtain. Don’t forget, Gabriel, the attack on our athletes in Munich was directed from East Berlin.”
     
     
    “Are you finished, Professor?”
     
     
    Lavon slipped the photo into the breast pocket of his jacket. Gabriel ordered two plates of spaghetti con carciofi and briefed Lavon on the assignment as they ate the last of the fish.
     
     
    “And if he’s clean when he gets to Tre Scalini?” Lavon asked. “What happens then?”
     
     
    “I want you to have a go at him in that fluent Russian of yours. Back him into a corner and see if he breaks.”
     
     
    “And if he insists on talking to you?”
     
     
    “Then you tell him to visit one more Roman tourist attraction.”
     
     
    “Which one?”
     
     
    Lavon, after hearing Gabriel’s answer, picked at the corner of his napkin in silence for a moment. “It certainly meets your requirements for a public place, Gabriel. But I doubt that your friend His Holiness will be pleased if he ever finds out you used his church for a clandestine meeting.”
     
     
    “It’s a basilica, Eli. And His Holiness will never know a thing.”
     
     
    “Unless something goes wrong.”
     
     
    “It’s my honeymoon. What could go wrong?”
     
     
    The waiter appeared with the two plates of pasta. Lavon glanced at his wristwatch.
     
     
    “Are you sure we have time for lunch?”
     
     
    “Eat your pasta, Eli. You have a long walk ahead of you.”
     

 
    7
     
     
    ROME
     
     
    They finished their lunch at a slightly un-Roman pace and departed the ghetto aboard the Piaggio scooter. Gabriel dropped Lavon near the Excelsior and rode to the Piazza di Spagna, where he took a window table at Caffè Greco. He appeared to be engrossed in his copy of La Repubblica as Boris Ostrovsky came strolling along the Via Condotti. Lavon was trailing fifty yards behind. He was still wearing his ascot, which meant he had seen no sign of surveillance.
     
     
    Gabriel finished his coffee while checking Lavon’s tail, then paid the check and rode to the Trevi Fountain. He was standing near the figure of Neptune’s rearing seahorse when Ostrovsky shouldered his way through the crowd of tourists and stood along the balustrade. The Russian was old enough to have endured the hardships of “developed Socialism” and seemed genuinely offended by the sight of rich Westerners hurling money into a work of art commissioned by the papacy. He dipped his handkerchief into the water and used it to dab the perspiration from his forehead. Then, reluctantly, he dug a single coin from his pocket and flung it into the fountain before turning and walking away. Gabriel glimpsed Lavon as he started after him. He was still wearing his ascot.
     
     
    The third stop on the itinerary was a slightly shorter walk, but the portly Russian appeared footsore and weary