The Defector

PLO mastermind never heard a thing. He died at his desk while watching a videotape of the intifada.
    Silence, speed, timing . . . Shamron’s holy trinity.
    “And afterward?” Mikhail asked softly.
    Afterward . . . A scene from Gabriel’s nightmares.
    Leaving the study, he had run straight into Abu Jihad’s wife. She was clutching a small boy to her breast in terror and clinging to the arm of her teenage daughter. Gabriel looked at the woman and in Arabic shouted: “Go back to your room!” Then he had said calmly to the girl: “Go and take care of your mother.”
    Go and take care of your mother . . .
    There were few nights when he did not see the face of that child. And he saw it now, as they turned off the highway and headed into the northernmost reaches of the oblast. Sometimes, Gabriel wondered whether he would have pulled the trigger had he known the girl was standing at his back. And sometimes, in his darker moments, he wondered whether everything that had befallen him since was not God’s punishment for killing a man in front of his family. Now, as he had done countless times before, he nudged the child gently from his thoughts and watched as Mikhail made another turn, this time into a dense stand of pine and fir. The headlamps went dark, the engine silent.
    “How far is the property?”
    “Two miles.”
    “How long to make the drive?”
    “Five minutes. We’ll take it nice and slow.”
    “You’re sure, Mikhail? Timing is everything.”
    “I’ve done it twice. I’m sure.”
    Mikhail began drumming his fingers on the console. Gabriel ignored him and looked at the clock: 6:25. The waiting . . . Waiting for the sun to rise before a morning of killing. Waiting to hold Chiara in his arms. Waiting for the child of Abu Jihad to forgive him. He poured himself a cup of coffee and loaded his weapons.
    6:26 . . . 6:27 . . . 6:28 . . .

    THE SUN set fire to the snowbank. Chiara did not know whether it was sunrise or sunset. But as the light fell upon Grigori’s sleeping face, she had a premonition of death, so clear that it seemed a stone had been laid over her heart. She heard the sound of the latch and watched as the woman with milk-white skin and translucent eyes entered the cell. The woman had food: stale bread, cold sausage, tea in paper cups. Whether it was breakfast or dinner, Chiara was not certain. The woman withdrew, locking the door behind her. Chiara held her tea between shackled hands and looked at the burning snowbank. As usual, the light remained only a few minutes. Then the fire was extinguished, and the room plunged once more into pitch-blackness.

61
    KONAKOVO, RUSSIA
    LIKE RUSSIA ITSELF, the airfield at Konakovo had been a two-time loser. Abandoned by the air force shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was allowed to crumble into a state of ruin before finally being taken over by a consortium of businessmen and civic leaders. For a brief period, it experienced modest success as a commercial cargo facility, only to see its fortunes plummet a second time with the price of Russian crude. The airfield now handled fewer than a dozen flights a week and was used mainly as a rest home for decaying Antonovs, Ilyushins, and Tupolevs. But its runway, at twelve thousand feet, was still one of the longest in the region, and its landing lights and radar systems functioned well by Russian standards, which is to say they worked most of the time.
    All systems were in good working order that Friday morning, and great effort had been made to plow and treat the runway and tarmac. And with good reason. The control tower had been informed by the Kremlin that an American Air Force C-32 would be landing at Konakovo at 9 a.m. sharp. What’s more, a delegation of hotshots from the Foreign Ministry and customs would be on hand to greet the aircraft and expedite arrival procedures. Airport authorities had not been told the identity of the arriving passengers, and they knew far better than to press the matter. One didn’t ask too many questions when the Kremlin was involved. Not unless one wanted the FSB knocking on one’s door.
    The Moscow delegation arrived shortly after eight and was waiting at the edge of the windswept tarmac when a string of lights appeared against the overcast sky to the south. A few of the officials initially mistook the lights for the American plane, which was not possible since the C-32 was still a hundred miles out and would be landing from the west, not the southeast. As