The Defector

taking any action on the soil of this country.” Carter paused, then added, “Which brings us to the third option.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Kachol v’lavan . ”
    “How certain are you that Ivan will be there?”
    Carter handed over the dossier.
    “Dead certain.”

77
    SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
    APPROPRIATELY ENOUGH, the boat was called Mischief : one hundred seventy-eight feet of American-built, Bahamian-registered luxury, owned and operated by one Maxim Simonov, better known as Mad Maxim, king of Russia’s lucrative nickel industry, friend and playmate of the Russian president, and former guest at Villa Soleil, Ivan Kharkov’s now-vacant palace by the sea in Saint-Tropez. Though Maxim owned a villa worth twenty million dollars on Spain’s Costa del Sol, he preferred the privacy and mobility of his yacht. He’d toured the North African coast in June and had spent July island-hopping through Greece. On the final leg of the excursion, he had ordered his crew to make a brief detour to the Turkish coast, and there, on the morning of August the ninth, he had taken aboard two more passengers: a sturdy-looking man called Alexei Budanov and his ravishing young wife, Zoya. Though childless, the couple had vast quantities of luggage—so much, in fact, they required a second stateroom just for storage. Mad Maxim seemed not to mind. His friends had endured a horrible year. And Mad Maxim, a generous soul if ever there was, had taken it upon himself to see they at least had a proper summer holiday.
    The host had earned his nickname not through his business acumen but through his leisure activities. His parties were notoriously wild affairs that seldom ended without violence or arrests. Indeed, several years earlier, Maxim was briefly detained after allegedly importing a planeload of Russian prostitutes to entertain guests at his château outside Paris. The French police later agreed to drop all charges after the billionaire managed to convince them the girls were simply part of a modern-dance troupe. The outrageous but somewhat comical affair did nothing to harm Maxim’s standing at home. In fact, the Moscow papers hailed him as the perfect example of the New Russian. Mad Maxim had money and he was not afraid to flaunt it, even if it meant getting into a scrape every now and again with the French police.
    The pace of his partying did not slow at sea. If anything, freed from the constraints of meddlesome authorities and complaining neighbors, it reached new levels of intensity. That summer had already produced many notable evenings of debauchery, but new heights were achieved with the arrival of Alexei and Zoya Budanov. Looked after by a crew of thirty, the entourage spent the voyage eating, drinking, and fornicating their way across the Mediterranean, before finally arriving in the fabled Old Port of Saint-Tropez on the afternoon of August the twentieth. Though exhausted and deeply hungover from the previous evening’s adventures, the passengers immediately boarded Mischief ’s dinghies and headed for shore. All but the man known as Alexei Budanov, who remained on the aft deck, hands resting on the railing, staring at Saint-Tropez as if it were his forbidden city. And though Mr. Budanov did not know it, he was already being watched by a man standing at the base of the lighthouse at the end of the Quai d’Estienne d’Orves.
    The man wore khaki shorts, a white pullover, a bucket hat, and wraparound sunglasses. Several months earlier, in a birch forest outside Moscow, Mr. Budanov had tried to kill his wife. Now the man planned to kill Mr. Budanov. But, for that, he needed one thing. He needed him to leave the ship. He was confident Mr. Budanov would not stay there long. The Russian was addicted to money, women, and Saint-Tropez. The French resort had been the backdrop for his downfall, and it would be the setting for his death. The man of medium height and build was sure of this. He simply had to be patient. He had to let Mr. Budanov come to him. And then he would put him down.

    FORTUNATELY, he would not have to wait alone. He had eight associates to keep him company. Under different names and speaking different languages, they had spent most of the summer on a tour of Europe quite unlike any other. This would be the last stop on their itinerary. Then it would be over.
    They lived together under one roof, in a villa located in the hills above the city. It had pale blue shutters and a large swimming pool with views of