The Defector

smug bastard, Gabriel. I should have broken your arm in Moscow and dragged you to the car.”
    “What do you want me to say, Uzi?”
    “I want you to tell me it will never happen again.”
    “And if it does?”
    “First I’ll break your arm. Then I’ll resign as chief of Special Ops, which will leave them with no other option but to give you the job. And I know how much you want that.”
    Gabriel raised his right hand. “Never again, Uzi—in the field, or anywhere else.”
    “Say it.”
    “I’m sorry for what transpired between us in Moscow. And I swear I’ll never disobey another direct order from you.”
    Navot appeared instantly mollified. Personal confrontation had never been his strong suit.
    “That’s it, Uzi? You came all the way to Umbria because you wanted an apology?”
    “And a promise, Gabriel. Don’t forget the promise.”
    “I haven’t forgotten.”
    “Good.” Navot placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Because I want you to listen to me very carefully. We’re going to go back to your villa of flowers, and you’re going to pack your bags. Then we’re going to Rome to spend the night inside the embassy. Tomorrow morning, when the ten o’clock flight takes off from Fiumicino Airport for Tel Aviv, we’re going to be on it, second row of first class, side by side.”
    “Why would we do that?”
    “Because Colonel Grigori Bulganov is gone.”
    “What do you mean gone ?”
    “I mean gone , Gabriel. No longer among us. Vanished into thin air. Gone .”

5
    AMELIA , UMBRIA
    HOW LONG has he been missing?”
    “About a week now.”
    “Be specific, Uzi.”
    “Colonel Grigori Bulganov was last spotted climbing into the back of a Mercedes sedan on Harrow Road at 6:12 p.m. on Tuesday evening.”
    They were walking through the dying twilight, along a narrow cobblestone street in Amelia’s ancient center. Trailing a few paces behind was a pair of fawn-eyed bodyguards. It was a troubling sign. Navot usually traveled with only a bat leveyha , a female escort officer, for protection. The fact he had brought along two trained killers indicated he took the threat to Gabriel’s life seriously.
    “When did the British get around to telling us?”
    “They placed a quiet call to London Station on Saturday afternoon, four days after the fact. Because it was Shabbat, the duty officer was a kid who didn’t quite understand the significance of what he’d just been told. The kid tapped out a cable and sent it off to King Saul Boulevard at low priority. Fortunately, the duty officer on the European Desk did understand and immediately placed a courtesy call to Shamron.”
    Gabriel shook his head. It had been years now since Shamron had done his last tour as chief, yet the Office was still very much his private fiefdom. It was filled with officers like Gabriel and Navot, men who had been recruited and groomed by Shamron, men who operated by a creed, even spoke a language, written by him. In Israel, Shamron was known as the Memuneh, the one in charge, and he would remain so until the day he finally decided the country was safe enough for him to die.
    “And I assume Shamron then called you ,” Gabriel said.
    “He did, though it was distinctly lacking in courtesy of any kind. He told me to send you a message. Then he told me to grab a couple of boys and get on a plane. This seems to be my lot in life—the dutiful younger son who is dispatched into the wilderness every few months to track down his wayward older brother.”
    “Was Grigori under surveillance when he got into the car?”
    “Apparently not.”
    “So how are the British so certain about what happened?”
    “Their little electronic helpers were watching.”
    Navot was referring to CCTV, the ubiquitous network of ten thousand closed-circuit television cameras that gave London’s Metropolitan Police the ability to monitor activity, criminal or otherwise, on virtually every street in the British capital. A recent government study had concluded that the system had failed in its primary objective: deterring crime and apprehending criminals. Only three percent of street robberies were solved using CCTV technology, and crime rates in London were soaring. Embarrassed police officials explained away the failure by pointing out that the criminals had accounted for the cameras by adjusting their tactics, such as wearing masks and hats to conceal their identities. Apparently, no one in charge had considered that possibility