The Defector

heard the rattle of a chain and watched the door swing slowly open. The woman standing in the tiny entranceway was clutching a Siamese cat with luminous blue eyes that matched hers to perfection. She wore a tight-fitting black sweater, charcoal-gray trousers, and smart black boots. Her hair, once long and flaxen, was now short and dark. Her face, however, was unchanged. It was one of the most beautiful Gabriel had ever seen: heroic, vulnerable, virtuous. The face of a Russian icon come to life. The face of Russia itself.
    Until six months ago, Olga Sukhova had been a practitioner of one of the world’s most dangerous trades: Russian journalism. From her post at Moskovskaya Gazeta , a crusading weekly, she had exposed the atrocities of the Red Army in Chechnya, unearthed corruption at the highest levels of the Kremlin, and been an unflinching critic of the Russian president’s assault on democracy. Her reporting had left her with a dim view of her country and its future, though nothing could have prepared her for the most important discovery of her career: a Russian oligarch and arms dealer named Ivan Kharkov was preparing to sell some of Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to al-Qaeda terrorists. Though never published by the Gazeta , the story resulted in the murder of two of Olga’s colleagues. The first, Aleksandr Lubin, was stabbed to death in a hotel room in the French ski resort of Courchevel. The second, an editor named Boris Ostrovsky, died in Gabriel’s arms on the floor of St. Peter’s Basilica, the victim of a poisoning. Were it not for Gabriel and Grigori Bulganov, Olga Sukhova would surely have been murdered as well.
    The dangerous nature of Olga’s work and the constant threats against her life had left her with the finely tuned tradecraft of a seasoned spy. Like Gabriel, she assumed all rooms, even the rooms of her own home, were bugged. Important conversations were best conducted in public places. Which explained why five minutes after Gabriel’s arrival, they were walking along the windswept pavements of St. Clement’s Street. Gabriel listened to the clatter of her boots against the pavement and thought of a cloudy afternoon in Moscow when they had walked among the dead in Novodevichy Cemetery, shadowed by rotating teams of Russian watchers. Perhaps you should kiss me now, Mr. Golani. It is better if the FSB is under the impression we intend to become lovers .
    “Do you miss it?” he asked.
    “Moscow?” She smiled sadly. “I miss it terribly. The noise. The smells. The horrendous traffic. Sometimes I even find myself missing the snow. January is nearly over, and not a single flake. The woman on the BBC called this a cold snap. In Moscow, we call it springtime.” She looked at him. “Does it ever snow in Oxford?”
    “If it does, it won’t be anything like home.”
    “Nothing is like home. Oxford is a lovely city, but I must confess I find it rather dull. Moscow has many problems, but at least it is never dull. You might find this hard to understand, but I desperately miss being a Russian journalist.”
    “A very wise and beautiful woman once told me there is no journalism in Russia—not real journalism, at least.”
    “It’s true. The regime has managed to silence its critics in the press, not by overt censorship but with murder, intimidation, and forced changes of ownership. The Gazeta is now nothing but a tabloid scandal sheet, filled with stories about pop stars, men from outer space, and werewolves living in the forests outside Moscow. You’ll be happy to know circulation is higher than ever.”
    “At least no one is getting killed.”
    “That’s true. Poor Boris was the last to die.”
    She gave Gabriel’s arm a melancholy squeeze. “I did notice a story about Ivan on the Gazeta ’s website last month. He was attending the opening-night party for a new restaurant in Moscow. His new wife, Yekaterina, was ravishing as usual. Ivan looked quite well himself. In fact, he was sporting a suntan.” She furrowed her brow into an affected frown. “Where do you suppose Ivan was able to get a suntan in Russia in the middle of winter? In one of those tanning beds? No, I don’t think so. Ivan’s not the sort to radiate his skin with lights. Ivan used to get his tan in Saint-Tropez. Perhaps he slipped into Courchevel with a false passport for a bit of skiing at Christmastime. Or perhaps he paid a visit to one of his old haunts in Africa.”
    “We’ve been picking up reports