The Defector

Rumors he had fled the country. Rumors, even, that he had been taken away by the FSB and killed. They were false, of course. Ivan was just observing another great Russian tradition, the tradition of internal exile. For Ivan, it was not marked by backbreaking labor or starvation rations. Ivan’s gulag was his fortresslike mansion in Zhukovka, the secret city of the oligarchs east of Moscow. And he had Yekaterina to soothe his wounds.
    Though Ivan’s name was never publicly linked to the killing site in Vladimirskaya Oblast, its exposure seemed to do harm to his standing inside the Kremlin. In certain circles, much was made of the fact that Ivan’s development firm lost out on an important construction project. And that his nightclub was suddenly out of fashion with the siloviki and the other Moscow well connected. And that his luxury-car dealership saw a sudden sharp decrease in sales. These were false readings, though, more symptomatic of Russia’s troubled economy than any real decline in Ivan’s fortunes. What’s more, his arms dealings continued apace, weapons sales being one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak global financial climate. Indeed, British, American, and French intelligence all noticed a sharp spike in the number of Kharkov-owned aircraft touching down on isolated landing strips from the Middle East to Africa and beyond. And the Russian president continued to take his cut. The tsar, as Ivan liked to say, always took his cut.
    NSA surveillance revealed that Ivan was aware of the systematic liquidation of Anton Petrov’s operatives and that it troubled him not at all. In Ivan’s mind, they had betrayed him and thus deserved the fate that befell them. In fact, throughout that long summer of retribution, he seemed obsessed by only two questions. Had his children been aboard the American jet that landed in Konakovo? And had they truly composed the letter of hatred handed to him by the pilot?
    The children and their mother knew the answer, of course, along with the American president and a handful of his most senior officials. So, too, did the small band of Israeli intelligence officers who convened at sunset on the first Friday of August north of the ancient city of Tiberias. The occasion was Shabbat; the setting was Shamron’s honey-colored villa overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The entire team was present, along with Sarah Bancroft, who had decided to spend her August holiday with Mikhail in Israel. There were spouses Gabriel had never met and children he had only seen in photographs. The presence of so many children was difficult for Chiara, especially when she saw their faces lit by the glow of the Shabbat candles. As Gilah recited the blessing, Chiara took Gabriel’s hand and held it tightly. Gabriel kissed her cheek and heard again the words she had spoken to him in Umbria. We mourn the dead and keep them in our hearts. But we live our lives .
    The summer spent by the lake had done wonders for Chiara’s appearance. Her skin was deeply tanned, and her riotous dark hair was aglow with gold and auburn highlights. She smiled easily throughout the meal and even burst into laughter when Bella scolded Uzi for taking a second portion of Gilah’s famous chicken with Moroccan spice. Watching her, Gabriel could almost imagine none of it had actually happened. That it had only been a dream from which they both had finally awakened. It wasn’t true, of course, and no amount of time would ever fully heal the wounds Ivan had inflicted. Chiara was like a newly restored painting, retouched and shimmering with a fresh coat of varnish but still damaged. She would have to be handled with great care.
    Gabriel had feared the gathering would be an occasion to relive the dreadful details of the affair, but it was mentioned only once, when Shamron spoke about the importance of what they had achieved. As Jews, they all had relatives whose earthly remains were turned to smoke by the crematoria or were buried in mass graves in the Baltics or the Ukraine. Their memories were kept by commemorative flames and by the index cards stored in the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem. But there were no graves to visit, no headstones upon which to shed tears. By their actions in Russia, Gabriel’s team had given such a place to the relatives of the seventy thousand murdered at the killing ground in Vladimirskaya Oblast. They had paid a terrible price, and Grigori had not survived, but with their sacrifice they had given a