The Defector

left and drove another two miles, until they reached a clearing at the highest point of the estate.
    A large, traditional Adirondack lodge stood in the center, its soaring roof and sweeping porches facing southeast, toward the faint warmth of the midday sun and the frozen lakes of St. Regis. A second lodge stood nearer the edge of the forest, smaller than the main house but still grand in its own right. Between the two structures was a meadow where two heavily bundled children were hard at work on a snowman, watched over by a tall, dark-haired woman in a shearling coat. Hearing the sound of approaching vehicles, she turned with an animal alertness, then, a few seconds later, lifted her hand dramatically into the air.
    Gabriel pulled up behind Fielding and switched off the engine. By the time he had opened the door, the woman was rushing toward him awkwardly through the knee-deep snow. She hurled her arms around his neck and kissed him elaborately on each cheek. “Welcome to the one place in the world Ivan will never find me,” said Elena Kharkov. “My God, Gabriel, I can’t believe you’re really here.”

33
    UPSTATE NEW YORK
    THEY HAD lunch in the large rustic dining room beneath a traditional Adirondack antler chandelier. Elena sat against a soaring window, framed by the distant lakes, Anna to her left, Nikolai to her right. Though Gabriel had carried out what amounted to a legal kidnapping of the Kharkov twins in the south of France the previous summer, he had never before seen them in person. He was struck now, as Sarah Bancroft had been upon meeting them for the first time, by their appearance. Anna, lanky and dark and blessed with a natural elegance, was a smaller version of her mother; Nikolai, fair and compact with a wide forehead and prominent brow, was the very likeness of his notorious father. Indeed, throughout an otherwise pleasant meal Gabriel had the uncomfortable feeling that Ivan Kharkov, his most implacable enemy, was scrutinizing his every move from the other side of the table.
    He was struck, too, by the sound of their voices. Their English was perfect and had only the faintest trace of a Russian accent. It was not surprising, he thought. In many respects, the Kharkov children were scarcely Russian at all. They had spent most of their life in a Knightsbridge mansion and had attended an exclusive London school. In winter, they had holidayed in Courchevel; in summer, they trooped south to Villa Soleil, Ivan’s palace by the sea in Saint-Tropez. As for Russia, it was a place they had visited a few weeks each year, just to keep in touch with their roots. Anna, the more talkative of the two, spoke of her native country as though it were something she had read about in books. Nikolai said little. He just stared at Gabriel a great deal, as if he suspected the unexplained lunch guest was somehow to blame for the fact he now lived on a mountaintop in the Adirondacks instead of west London and the south of France.
    When the meal was concluded, the children kissed their mother’s cheek and dutifully carried their dishes into the kitchen. “It took a little time for them to get used to life without servants,” Elena said when they were gone. “I think it’s better they live like normal children for a while.” She smiled at the absurdity of her statement. “Well, almost normal.”
    “How have they handled the adjustment?”
    “As well as one might expect, under the circumstances. Their lives as they knew them ended in the blink of an eye, all because their Russian bodyguards were stopped for speeding while leaving the beach in Saint-Tropez. I suspect they were the only people pulled over for speeding in the south of France the entire summer.”
    “Gendarmes can be rather unpredictable in their enforcement of traffic regulations.”
    “They can also be very kind. They took good care of my children when they were in custody. Nikolai still speaks fondly of the time he spent in the Saint-Tropez gendarmerie. He also enjoyed the monastery in the Alps. As far as the children were concerned, their escape was all a big adventure. And I have you to thank for that, Gabriel. You made it very easy on them.”
    “How much do they know about what happened to their father?”
    “They know he had some trouble with his business. And they know he divorced me in order to marry his friend, Yekaterina. As for the arms trafficking and the killings . . .” Her voice trailed off. “They’re far too young to