Moscow Rules

of a deal. Finally, the matter was taken out of our hands entirely. Quite unexpectedly, the owner of the Gazeta decided to sell the magazine. I’m afraid he didn’t reach the decision on his own; he was pressured into the sale by the Kremlin and the FSB. Our new owner is a man with no experience in journalism whatsoever, and his first move was to appoint a publisher with even less. The publisher announced that he was no longer interested in hard news or investigative journalism. The Gazeta was now going to focus on celebrity news, the arts, and life in the New Russia. He then held a meeting with Boris Ostrovsky to review upcoming stories. Guess which story he killed first?”
     
     
    “An investigation into a possible deal between a Russian arms trafficker and al-Qaeda.”
     
     
    “Exactly.”
     
     
    “I assume the time of the sale wasn’t a coincidence.”
     
     
    “No, it wasn’t. Our new owner is an associate of the arms dealer. In all likelihood, it was the arms dealer who put up all the money. Rather remarkable, don’t you think, Mr. Golani? Only in Russia.”
     
     
    She reached into her handbag and withdrew a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Do you mind?”
     
     
    Gabriel shook his head, and glanced around the restaurant. One of the mobsters had his hand on the bare thigh of his date, but there were no signs of any watchers. Olga lit her cigarette and placed the pack and lighter on the table.
     
     
    “The sale of the magazine presented us with a terrible dilemma. We believed the story about the missile sale to be true, but we now had no place to publish it. Nor could we continue to investigate the story inside Russia. We decided on another course of action. We decided to make our findings known to the West through a trusted figure inside Israeli intelligence.”
     
     
    "Why me? Why not walk over to the U.S. Embassy and tell the CIA station chief?”
     
     
    “It is no longer wise for members of the opposition or the press to meet with American officials, especially those who also happen to work for the CIA. Besides, Boris always admired the secret intelligence service of Israel. And he was especially fond of a certain agent who recently got his picture in the paper for saving the life of the daughter of the American ambassador to London.”
     
     
    “And so he decided to leave the country and contact us in Rome?”
     
     
    “In keeping with the new mission of the Gazeta , he told our publisher he wanted to do a piece about Russians at play in the Eternal City. After he arrived in Rome, he made contact with your embassy and requested a meeting. Obviously, the arms dealer and his security service were watching. I suspect they’re watching now.”
     
     
    “Who is he? Who is the arms dealer?”
     
     
    She said a name, then picked up the wine list and opened the cover.
     
     
    “Let’s have something to drink, shall we, Mr. Golani? Do you prefer red or white?”
     
     
    Stalin brought the wine. It was Georgian, bloodred, and very rough. Gabriel’s thoughts were now elsewhere. He was thinking of the name Olga Sukhova had just spoken. It was familiar to him, of course. Everyone in the trade had heard the name Ivan Kharkov.
     
     
    “How much do you know about him, Mr. Golani?”
     
     
    “The basics. Former KGB turned Russian oligarch. Passes himself off as a legitimate investor and international businessman. Lives mainly in London and France.”
     
     
    “Those are the basics. May I give you a more thorough version of the story?”
     
     
    Gabriel nodded his head. Olga braced herself on her elbows and held the wineglass near her face with both hands. Between them, a candle flickered in a red bowl. It added blush to her pale cheeks.
     
     
    “He was a child of Soviet privilege, our Ivan. His father was high-ranking KGB. Very high-ranking. In fact, when he retired, he was the chief of the First Main Directorate, the foreign espionage division. Ivan spent a good part of his childhood abroad. He was permitted to travel, while ordinary Soviet citizens were kept prisoner in their own country. He had blue jeans and Rolling Stones records, while ordinary Soviet teenagers had Communist propaganda and Komsomol weekends in the country. In the days of shortages, when the workers were forced to eat seaweed and whale meat, he and his family had fresh veal and caviar.”
     
     
    She drank some of the wine. At the front entrance, Stalin was negotiating with two male customers