“He’s going to give Pavel a simple choice.”
“A choice between coming quietly or having his brains splattered over the inside of his nice Mercedes?”
“Something like that.”
“What about Shamron’s golden rule?”
“Which one?”
“The one about waving guns around in public.”
“There’s a little-known exception when it comes to sticking a gun in the ribs of a hood like Pavel.”
Lavon made a show of thought. “We’ll have to take the driver, too,” he said finally. “Otherwise, every FSB officer and militiaman in Russia will be looking for us.”
“Yes, Eli, I realize that.”
“Where do you intend to conduct the interrogation?”
“Here,” said Gabriel, tapping the keyboard again.
“Lovely,” said Lavon, looking at the screen. “Who does it belong to?”
“A Russian businessman who couldn’t stand living in Russia anymore.”
“Where does he live now?”
“Just down the road from Shamron.”
With a click of the mouse, Gabriel removed the image from the screen.
“That leaves just one last thing,” Lavon said.
“Getting Mikhail out of Russia.”
Lavon nodded. “He’ll have to leave as someone other than Nicholas Avedon.”
“Preferably with as few Russian hurdles to clear as possible,” added Gabriel.
“So how do we do it?”
“The same way Shamron got Eichmann out of Argentina.”
“El Al?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Naughty boy,” said Lavon.
“Yes,” replied Gabriel, smiling. “And I’m just getting started.”
Navot approved Gabriel’s plan immediately, which left the team five days until Mikhail was to give Gennady Lazarev an answer as to whether he was coming to Moscow. Five days to see to a thousand details large and small—or, as Lavon put it, five days to determine whether Mikhail’s visit to Russia would turn out better than his last. Passports, visas, identities, travel arrangements, lodgings: everything had to be procured on a crash basis. And then there were the bolt-holes, the backup plans, and the backup plans for the backup plans. Their task was made even more difficult by the fact that Gabriel could not tell them where or when the snatch of Zhirov would take place. They were going to have to improvise in a city that, throughout its long and bloody history, had never been particularly kind to freethinkers.
Gabriel drove his team hard during those long days and nights; and when his back was turned, Navot drove them even harder. There was no visible tension between the two men, no evidence that one was in ascendance and the other was headed toward the exits. Indeed, several members of the team wondered if they might be witnessing the formation of a partnership that could survive long after Gabriel assumed his rightful place as chief of the Office. Yaakov, the most fatalistic of the lot, scoffed at the notion. “It would be like the new wife deciding to let the first wife keep her old room. It will never happen.” But Eli Lavon wasn’t so sure. If there was anyone who was confident enough to allow his predecessor to stay on in some capacity, it was Gabriel Allon. After all, Lavon said, if Gabriel could make peace with Christopher Keller, he could reach an accommodation with Navot.
All talk of Gabriel’s future plans ended whenever Chiara entered the room. At first, she tried to work alongside the others, but the endless talk of Russia quickly darkened her mood. She was alive only because the members of the team had once risked their lives to save her. Now, as they struggled against the deadline, she assumed the role of their caretaker. Despite the tension inside the house, she made certain the atmosphere remained familial. Each evening they sat down to a lavish meal and, at Chiara’s insistence, spoke of anything except the operation—books they had read, films they had seen, the future of their troubled country. Then, after an hour or so, Gabriel and Navot would rise restlessly to their feet, and the work would start up again. Chiara happily saw to the dishes each night. Alone at the basin, she sang softly to herself to drown out the sound of the conversation in the next room. Later, she would confess to Gabriel that the mere sound of a Russian word produced a hollow aching in her abdomen.