The Defector

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
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    Copyright © 2009 by Daniel Silva
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any
printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy
of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published simultaneously in Canada

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Silva, Daniel, date.
The defector / Daniel Silva.
p. cm.
    eISBN : 978-1-101-10502-3

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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For Marilyn Ducksworth,
for many years of friendship,
support, and laughter.

    And as always, for my wife, Jamie,
and my children, Nicholas and Lily.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe
that his vengeance need not be feared.

    •
    MACHIAVELLI

PART ONE
    Opening Moves

1
    VLADIMIRSKAYA OBLAST, RUSSIA
    PYOTR LUZHKOV was about to be killed, and for that he was grateful.
    It was late October, but autumn was already a memory. It had been brief and unsightly, an old babushka hurriedly removing a threadbare frock. Now this: leaden skies, arctic cold, windblown snow. The opening shot of Russia’s winter without end.
    Pyotr Luzhkov, shirtless, barefoot, hands bound behind his back, was scarcely aware of the cold. In fact, at that moment he would have been hard-pressed to recall his name. He believed he was being led by two men through a birch forest but could not be certain. It made sense they were in a forest. That was the place Russians liked to do their blood work. Kurapaty, Bykivnia, Katyn, Butovo . . . Always in the forests. Luzhkov was about to join a great Russian tradition. Luzhkov was about to be granted a death in the trees.
    There was another Russian custom when it came to killing: the intentional infliction of pain. Pyotr Luzhkov had been forced to scale mountains of pain. They had broken his fingers and his thumbs. They had broken his arms and his ribs. They had broken his nose and his jaw. They had beaten him even when he was unconscious. They had beaten him because they had been told to. They had beaten him because they were Russians. The only time they had stopped was when they were drinking vodka. When the vodka was gone, they had beaten him even harder.
    Now he was on the final leg of his journey, the long walk to a grave with no marker. Russians had a term for it: vyshaya mera , the highest form of punishment. Usually, it was reserved for traitors, but Pyotr Luzhkov had betrayed no one. He had been duped by his master’s wife, and his master had lost everything because of it. Someone had to pay. Eventually, everyone would pay.
    He could see his master now, standing alone amid the match-stick trunks of the birch trees. Black leather coat, silver hair, head like a tank turret. He was looking down at the large-caliber pistol in his hand.