The Defector

“I trusted you, Mikhail. I allowed you into my home. You betrayed me.”
    “It was just business, Ivan.”
    “Really? Just business? Elena told me about that shitty little villa in the hills above Saint-Tropez. She told me about the lunch you had waiting. And the wine. Bandol rosé. Elena’s favorite.”
    “Very cold. Just the way she likes it.”
    Another backhand, hard enough to send Mikhail crashing into the side of the dacha. With his hands still bound, he was unable to stand on his own. Ivan seized the front of his parka and lifted him effortlessly to his feet.
    “She told me about the shitty little room where you made love. She even told me about the Monet prints hanging on the wall. Funny, don’t you think? Elena had two real Monets of her own. And yet you took her to a room with Monet posters on the wall. Do you remember them, Mikhail?”
    “Not really.”
    “Why not?”
    “I was too busy looking at your wife.”
    This time, it was a sledgehammer fist. It opened another gash on Mikhail’s face, an inch beneath the left eye. As the guards hauled him to his feet, Chiara pleaded with Ivan to stop. Ivan ignored her. Ivan was just getting started.
    “Elena said you were a perfect gentleman. That you made love twice. That you wanted to make love a third time, but Elena said no. She had to be going. She had to get home to her children. Do you remember it now, Mikhail?”
    “I remember, Ivan.”
    “These were lies, were they not? You concocted this story of a romantic encounter in order to deceive me. You never made love to my wife in that villa. You debriefed her about my operation. Then you plotted her defection and the theft of my children.”
    “No, Ivan.”
    “No, what?”
    “The lunch was waiting. So was the rosé. Bandol. Elena’s favorite. We made love twice. Unlike you, I was a perfect gentleman.”
    The knee came up. Mikhail went down. He stayed down.
    Now it was Gabriel’s turn.

    IVAN’S MEN had not bothered to remove Gabriel’s watch. It was strapped to his left wrist, and the wrist was pinned to his kidney. In his mind, though, he could picture the digital numbers advancing. At last check it had been 9:11:07. Time had stopped with the collision, and it had started again with Ivan’s arrival from Konakovo. Gabriel and Shamron had chosen the old airfield for a reason: to create space between Ivan and the dacha. To create time in the event something went wrong. Gabriel reckoned at least an hour had elapsed between the time of their capture and the time of Ivan’s arrival. He knew Shamron had not spent that hour planning a funeral. Now Gabriel and Mikhail had to help their own cause by giving Shamron one thing: time . Oddly enough, they would have to enlist Ivan as their ally. They had to keep Ivan angry. They had to keep Ivan talking. When Ivan went silent, bad things happened. Countries tore themselves to shreds. People died.
    “You were a fool to come back to Russia, Allon. I knew you would, but you were a fool regardless.”
    “Why didn’t you just kill me in Italy and be done with it?”
    “Because there are certain things a man does himself. And thanks to you, I can’t go to Italy. I can’t go anywhere.”
    “You don’t like Russia, Ivan?”
    “I love Russia.” A terse smile. “Especially from a distance.”
    “So I suppose the demand for your children was a lie—just like your agreement to return my wife unharmed.”
    “I believe ‘safe and sound’ were the words Korovin and Shamron used in Paris. And no, Allon, it was not a lie. I do want my children back.” He glanced at Chiara. “I calculated that kidnapping your wife gave me at least an outside chance of getting them.”
    “You knew Elena and the children were living in America?”
    “Let us say I strongly suspected that was the case.”
    “So why didn’t you kidnap an American target?”
    “Two reasons. First and foremost, our president wouldn’t have permitted it, since it would have almost certainly caused an open rupture in our relations with Washington.”
    “And the second reason?”
    “It wouldn’t have been a wise investment in time and resources.”
    “Would you care to explain?”
    “Certainly,” said Ivan, his tone suddenly convivial. “As everyone in the world knows, the Americans have a policy against negotiating with kidnappers and terrorists. But you Israelis operate differently. Because you are a small country, life is very precious to you. That means you’ll negotiate at the