Moscow Rules

Sukhova.”
     
     
    “Forgive my tone, Mr. Golani. I am an old-fashioned Russian woman who likes to grow radishes and carrots in the garden of her grandfather’s broken-down dacha. I believe in my Russia, and I want no more acts of evil committed in my name. Neither did Boris Ostrovsky. That is why he wanted to talk to you. And that is why he was murdered. ”
     
     
    “Why did he go to Rome, Olga? What did he want to tell me?”
     
     
    She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingertip. “Perhaps you should kiss me now, Mr. Golani. It is better if the FSB is under the impression we intend to become lovers.”
     

 
    15
     
     
    MOSCOW
     
     
    They drove to the Old Arbat in her car, an ancient pea soup green Lada with a dangling front bumper. She knew a place where they could talk: a Georgian restaurant with stone grottoes and faux streams and waiters in native dress. It was loud, she assured him. Bedlam . “The owner looks a little too much like Stalin for some people. ” She pointed out the window at another one of the Seven Sisters. “The Ukraina Hotel.”
     
     
    “World’s biggest?”
     
     
    “We cannot live as normal people.”
     
     
    She left the car in a flagrantly illegal space near Arbat Square and they walked to the restaurant through the fading late-afternoon light. She had been right about the owner—he looked like a wax figure of Stalin come to life—and about the noise as well. Gabriel had to lean across the table a few degrees to hear her speak. She was talking about an anonymous tip the Gazeta had received before the New Year. A tip from a source whose name she could never divulge . . .
     
     
    “This source told us that an arms dealer with close ties to the Kremlin and our president was about to conclude a major deal that would put some very dangerous weapons into the hands of some very dangerous people.”
     
     
    “What kind of people?”
     
     
    “The kind you have been fighting your entire life, Mr. Golani. The kind who have vowed to destroy your country and the West. The kind who fly airplanes into buildings and set off bombs in crowded markets.”
     
     
    “Al-Qaeda?”
     
     
    “Or one of its affiliates.”
     
     
    “What type of weapons?”
     
     
    “We don’t know.”
     
     
    “Are they conventional?”
     
     
    “We don’t know.”
     
     
    “Chemical or biological?”
     
     
    “We don’t know.”
     
     
    “But you can’t rule it out?”
     
     
    “We can’t rule anything out, Mr. Golani. For all we know, the weapons could be radiological or even nuclear. ” She was silent for a moment, then managed a cautious smile, as if embarrassed by an awkward pause in the conversation. “Perhaps it would be better if I simply told you what I do know.”
     
     
    She was now gazing at him intently. Gabriel heard a commotion to his left and glanced over his shoulder. Stalin was seating a group of people at the neighboring table: two aging mobsters and their high-priced professional dates. Olga took note of them as well and continued speaking.
     
     
    “The source who provided us with the initial tip about the sale is impeccable and assured us that the information was accurate. But we couldn’t print a story based on a single source. You see, unlike many of our competitors, the Gazeta has a reputation for thoroughness and accuracy. We’ve been sued many times by people who didn’t like what we wrote about them but we’ve never lost, not even in the kangaroo courts of Russia.”
     
     
    “So you started asking questions?”
     
     
    “We’re reporters, Mr. Golani. That’s what we do. Our investigation unearthed a few intriguing bits but nothing specific and nothing we could publish. We decided to send one of our reporters to Courchevel to follow the arms dealer in question. The dealer owns a chalet there. A rather large chalet, actually.”
     
     
    “The reporter was Aleksandr Lubin?”
     
     
    She nodded her head slowly. “I assume you know the details from the news accounts. Aleksandr was murdered within a few hours of his arrival. Obviously, it was a warning to the rest of the Gazeta staff to back off. I’m afraid it had the opposite effect, though. We took Aleksandr’s murder as confirmation the story was true.”
     
     
    “And so you kept digging?”
     
     
    “Carefully. But, yes, we kept digging. We were able to uncover much about the arms dealer’s operations in general, but were never able to pin down the specifics