They flashed through a string of towns, each more desolate than the last: Lakinsk, Demidovo, Vorsha. Ahead lay Vladimir, capital of the oblast. Its five-domed Cathedral of the Assumption had been the model for all the cathedrals of Russia-the cathedrals Stalin had destroyed or turned into pigpens. Mikhail explained that people had been living in and around Vladimir for twenty-five thousand years, an impressive statistic even for a boy from the Valley of Jezreel. Twenty-five thousand years, Gabriel thought, gazing out at the broken factories on the city’s western outskirts. Why had they come? Why had they stayed?
Reclining his seat, he saw an image of his last late-night drive through the Russian countryside: Olga and Elena sleeping in the backseat, Grigori behind the wheel. Promise me one thing, Gabriel… At least then they had been driving out of Russia, not directly into the belly of the beast. Mikhail found a news bulletin on the radio and provided simultaneous translation while he drove. The first day of the G-8 summit had gone well, at least from the point of view of the Russian president, which was the only one that mattered. Then, by some miracle of atmospheric conditions, Mikhail found a BBC bulletin in English. There had been an important political development in Zimbabwe. A fatal plane crash in South Korea. And in Afghanistan, Taliban forces had carried out a major raid in Kabul. With Ivan’s guns, no doubt.
“Is it possible to drive to Afghanistan from here?”
“Sure,” said Mikhail. He then proceeded to recite the road numbers and the distances while Vladimir, center of human habitation for twenty-five millennia, receded once more into the darkness.
They listened to the BBC until the signal became too faint to hear. Then Mikhail switched off the radio and again began drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Something bothering you, Mikhail?”
“Maybe we should talk about it. I’d feel better if we ran through it a couple of hundred times.”
“That’s not like you. I need you to be confident.”
“It’s your wife in there, Gabriel. I’d hate to think that something I did-”
“You’re going to be just fine. But if you want to run through it a couple of hundred times…” Gabriel’s voice trailed off as he looked out at the limitless frozen landscape. “It’s not as if we have anything better to do.”
Mikhail’s voice dropped in pitch slightly as he began to speak about the operation. The key to everything, he said, would be speed. They had to overwhelm them quickly. A sentry will always hesitate for an instant, even when confronted with someone he doesn’t know. That instant would be their opening. They would take it swiftly and decisively. “And no gunfights,” Mikhail said. “Gunfights are for cowboys and gangsters.”
Mikhail was neither. He was Sayeret Matkal, the most elite unit on earth. The Sayeret had pulled off operations other units could only dream of. It had done Entebbe and Sabena and jobs much harder that no one would ever read about. Mikhail had dispensed death to the terror masterminds of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade. He had even crossed into Lebanon and killed members of Hezbollah. They had been hellish operations, carried out in crowded cities and refugee camps. Not one had failed. Not a single terrorist targeted by Mikhail was still walking the earth. A dacha in a birch forest was nothing for a man like him. Ivan’s guards were special forces themselves: Alpha Group and OMON. Even so, Mikhail spoke of them only in the past tense. As far as he was concerned, they were already dead. Silence, speed, and timing would be the key.
Silence, speed, timing… Shamron’s holy trinity.
Unlike Mikhail, Gabriel had never carried out assassinations in the West Bank or Gaza, and, for the most part, had managed to avoid operating in Arab countries. One notable exception was Abu Jihad, the nom de guerre of Khalil al-Wazir, the second-highest-ranking figure in the PLO after Yasir Arafat. Like all Sayeret recruits, Mikhail had studied every aspect of the operation during his training, but he had never asked Gabriel about that night. He did so now as they thundered along the deserted highway. And Gabriel obliged him, though he would regret it later.
Abu Jihad… Even now, the sound of his name put ice at the back of Gabriel’s neck. In April of 1988, this symbol of Palestinian suffering was living in splendid exile in Tunis, in a large villa near the beach. Gabriel had personally surveilled the house and the surrounding district and had overseen the construction of a duplicate in the Negev, where they had rehearsed for several weeks prior to the operation. On the night of the hit, he had come ashore in a rubber boat and climbed into a waiting van. In a matter of minutes, it was over. There had been a guard outside the house, dozing behind the wheel of a Mercedes. Gabriel had shot him through the ear with a silenced Beretta. Then, with the help of his Sayeret escorts, he had blown the front door off the hinges with a special explosive that emitted little more sound than a handclap. After killing a second guard in the front entrance hall, Gabriel had crept quietly up the stairs to Abu Jihad’s study. So silent was Gabriel’s approach that the PLO mastermind never heard a thing. He died at his desk while watching a videotape of the intifada.
Silence, speed, timing… Shamron’s holy trinity.
“And afterward?” Mikhail asked softly.
Afterward… A scene from Gabriel’s nightmares.
Leaving the study, he had run straight into Abu Jihad’s wife. She was clutching a small boy to her breast in terror and clinging to the arm of her teenage daughter. Gabriel looked at the woman and in Arabic shouted: “Go back to your room!” Then he had said calmly to the girclass="underline" “Go and take care of your mother.”
Go and take care of your mother…
There were few nights when he did not see the face of that child. And he saw it now, as they turned off the highway and headed into the northernmost reaches of the oblast. Sometimes, Gabriel wondered whether he would have pulled the trigger had he known the girl was standing at his back. And sometimes, in his darker moments, he wondered whether everything that had befallen him since was not God’s punishment for killing a man in front of his family. Now, as he had done countless times before, he nudged the child gently from his thoughts and watched as Mikhail made another turn, this time into a dense stand of pine and fir. The headlamps went dark, the engine silent.
“How far is the property?”
“Two miles.”
“How long to make the drive?”
“Five minutes. We’ll take it nice and slow.”
“You’re sure, Mikhail? Timing is everything.”
“I’ve done it twice. I’m sure.”
Mikhail began drumming his fingers on the console. Gabriel ignored him and looked at the clock: 6:25. The waiting… Waiting for the sun to rise before a morning of killing. Waiting to hold Chiara in his arms. Waiting for the child of Abu Jihad to forgive him. He poured himself a cup of coffee and loaded his weapons.
6:26… 6:27… 6:28…
THE SUN set fire to the snowbank. Chiara did not know whether it was sunrise or sunset. But as the light fell upon Grigori’s sleeping face, she had a premonition of death, so clear that it seemed a stone had been laid over her heart. She heard the sound of the latch and watched as the woman with milk-white skin and translucent eyes entered the cell. The woman had food: stale bread, cold sausage, tea in paper cups. Whether it was breakfast or dinner, Chiara was not certain. The woman withdrew, locking the door behind her. Chiara held her tea between shackled hands and looked at the burning snowbank. As usual, the light remained only a few minutes. Then the fire was extinguished, and the room plunged once more into pitch-blackness.