“Someone is listening.”
Lavon smiled. “I sent a sample of his voice to King Saul Boulevard and told them to run it through the computers.”
“And?”
“No match.”
“Forward the sample to Adrian Carter at Langley.”
“And if Carter asks for an explanation?”
“Lie to him.”
Just then, the three Russian oil executives collapsed in uproarious laughter. As Lavon leaned forward to listen, Gabriel moved slowly to the window and peered into the street. It was empty except for a young woman walking along the snowy pavement. She had Madeline’s alabaster skin and Madeline’s cheekbones. Indeed, the resemblance was so startling that for an instant Gabriel felt compelled to run after her. The Russians were still laughing. Surely, thought Gabriel, they were laughing at him. He drew a deep breath to slow the clamorous beating of his heart and watched Madeline’s wraith pass beneath his feet. Then the darkness reclaimed her and she was gone.
43
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
They held the forum in the Bella Center, a hideous glass-and-steel convention hall that looked like a giant greenhouse dropped from outer space. A pack of reporters stood shivering outside the entrance, behind a cordon of yellow tape. Most of the arriving executives had the good sense to ignore their shouted taunts, but not Orlov. He paused to answer a question about the sudden spike in global oil prices, from which he profited wildly, and soon found himself holding forth on subjects ranging from the British election to the Kremlin’s crackdown on Russia’s pro-democracy movement. Gabriel and the team heard every word of it, for Mikhail was standing at Orlov’s side in plain sight of the cameras, his mobile phone in his hand. In fact, it was Mikhail who finally put an end to Orlov’s impromptu news conference by taking hold of his coat sleeve and tugging him toward the center’s open door. Later, a British reporter would remark that it was the first time she had ever seen anyone—“And I mean anyone!”—dare to lay so much as a finger on Viktor Orlov.
Once inside, Orlov was a whirlwind. He attended every panel discussion the morning had to offer, visited every booth on the exhibition floor, and accepted every hand that was extended his way, even those that were attached to men who loathed him. “This is Nicholas Avedon,” he would say to anyone within earshot. “Nicholas is my right hand and my left. Nicholas is my north star.”
Lunch was a vertical affair—Orlov-speak for a buffet meal with no assigned seating—and there was no alcohol or pork in deference to the many delegates from the Muslim world. Orlov and Mikhail sailed through it without a bite and then settled in for the afternoon’s first panel, a somber discussion of the lessons learned from BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Gennady Lazarev was in attendance as well, seated two rows behind Orlov’s right shoulder. “Like an assassin,” Orlov murmured to Mikhail. “He’s circling for the kill. It’s only a matter of time before he draws his gun.”
The remark was clearly audible in the little flat on the street with an unpronounceable name, and the sentiments expressed were shared by Gabriel and the rest of his team. In fact, thanks to the camera hanging around Yossi’s neck, they had the photographs to prove it. During the morning session of the forum, Lazarev had kept a safe distance. But now, as the afternoon wore on, he was moving ever closer to his target. “He’s like a jetliner in a holding pattern,” said Eli Lavon. “He’s just waiting for the tower to give him clearance to land.”
“I’m not sure the weather conditions on the ground will allow it,” replied Gabriel.
“When do you expect a window to open?”
“Here,” said Gabriel, tapping his forefinger on the final entry of the first-day schedule. “This is when we’ll set him down.”