“It’s not working.”

“How often does it break down?”

“Once a week. Sometimes twice.”

“What floor do you live on?”

“The eleventh.”

“Where are the stairs?”

With a glance, she indicated around the corner. Gabriel led her into a dimly lit stairwell that smelled of stale beer, urine, and vaguely of disinfectant. “I’m afraid progress has come slowly to Russian stair-wells, ” she said. “Believe it or not, it used to be much worse.”

Gabriel mounted the first step and started upward, with Olga at his heels. For the first four floors, they were alone, but on the fifth they encountered two girls sharing a cigarette and on the seventh two boys sharing a syringe. On the eighth-floor landing, Gabriel had to slow for a moment to scrape a condom from the bottom of his shoe, and on the tenth he walked through shards of broken glass.

By the time they reached the eleventh-floor landing, Olga was breathing heavily. Gabriel reached out for the latch, but before he could touch it, the door flew away from him as though it had been hurled open by a blast wave. He pushed Olga into the corner and managed to step clear of the threshold as the first rounds tore the dank air. Olga began to scream but Gabriel scarcely noticed. He was now pressed against the wall of the stairwell. He felt no fear, only a sense of profound disappointment. Someone was about to die. And it wasn’t going to be him.

The gun was a P-9 Gurza with a suppressor screwed into the barrel. It was a professional’s weapon, though the same could not be said for the dolt who was wielding it.

Perhaps it was overconfidence on the part of the assassin, Gabriel would think later, or perhaps the men who had hired him had neglected to point out that one of the targets was a professional himself. Whatever the case, the gunman blundered through the doorway with the weapon exposed in his outstretched hands. Gabriel seized hold of it and pointed it safely toward the ceiling as he drove the man against the wall. The gun discharged harmlessly twice before Gabriel was able to deliver two vicious knees to the gunman’s groin, followed by a crushing elbow to the temple. Though the final blow was almost certainly lethal, Gabriel left nothing to chance. After prying the Gurza from the gunman’s now-limp hand, he fired two shots into his skull, the ultimate professional insult.

Amateurs, he knew from experience, tended to kill in pairs, which explained his rather calm reaction to the sound of crackling glass rising up the stairwell. He pulled Olga out of the line of fire and was standing at the top of the stairs as the second man came round the corner. Gabriel put him down as if he were a target on a training range: three tightly grouped shots to the center of the body, one to the head for style points.

He stood motionless for a few seconds, until he was certain there were no more assassins, then turned around. Olga was cowering on the floor, next to the first man Gabriel had killed. Like the one at the bottom of the stairs, his head was covered by a black balaclava. Gabriel tore it off, revealing a lifeless face with a dark beard.

“He’s Chechen,” Olga said.

“You’re sure?”

Before Olga could answer, she leaned over the edge of the stairs and was violently sick. Gabriel held her hand as she convulsed. In the distance, he could hear the first sirens of the police.

“They’ll be here any minute, Olga. We’re never going to see each other again. You must give me the name. Tell me your source before it’s too late.”

17 MOSCOW

The first officers to arrive were members of a Moscow City Militia public security unit, the proletariat of the city’s vast police and intelligence apparatus. The ranking officer was a stubblechinned sergeant who spoke only Russian. He took a brief statement from Olga, whom he appeared to know by reputation, then turned his attention to the dead gunmen. “Chechen gangsters,” he declared with disgust. He gathered a few more facts, including the name and nationality of Miss Sukhova’s foreign friend, and radioed the information to headquarters. At the end of the call, he ordered his colleagues not to disturb the scene and confiscated Gabriel’s diplomatic passport, hardly an encouraging sign.

The next officers to appear were members of the GUOP, the special unit that handles cases related to organized crime and contract killings, one of Moscow ’s most lucrative industries. The team leader wore blue jeans, a black leather jacket, and a pair of wraparound sunglasses backward on his shaved head. He called himself Markov. No rank. No first name. Just Markov. Gabriel instantly recognized the type. Markov was the sort who walked the delicate line between criminal and cop. He could have gone either way, and, at various times during his career, he probably had.

He examined the corpses and agreed with the sergeant’s findings that they were probably Chechen contract killers. But unlike the younger man, he spoke a bit of English. His first questions were directed not at the famous reporter from the Gazeta but at Gabriel. He seemed most interested in hearing how a middle-aged Israeli diplomat from the Ministry of Culture had managed to disarm a professional assassin, shoot him twice in the head, and then kill his partner. Listening to Gabriel’s account, his expression was one of open skepticism. He scrutinized Gabriel’s passport carefully, then slipped it into his coat pocket and said they would have to continue this conversation at headquarters.

“I must protest,” Gabriel said.

“I understand,” said Markov sadly.

For reasons never made clear, Gabriel was handcuffed and taken by unmarked car to a busy Militia headquarters. There, he was led into the central processing area and placed on a wooden bench, next to a weathered man in his sixties who had been roughed up and robbed by street toughs. An hour passed; Gabriel finally walked over to the duty officer and asked for permission to phone his embassy. The duty officer translated Gabriel’s request to his colleagues, who immediately erupted into uproarious laughter. “They want money,” the elderly man said when Gabriel returned to the bench. “You cannot leave until you pay them what they want.” Gabriel managed a brief smile. If only it were that simple.

Shortly after 1 A.M., Markov reappeared. He ordered Gabriel to stand, removed the handcuffs, and led him into an interrogation room. Gabriel’s possessions-his billfold, diplomatic passport, wristwatch, and mobile-were laid out neatly on a table. Markov picked up the phone and made a show of calling up the directory of recent calls.

“You dialed your embassy before the first Militia officers arrived.”

“That’s correct.”

“What did you say to them?”

“That I had been attacked and that the police were going to be involved.”

“You didn’t mention this when I questioned you at the apartment house.”

“It’s standard procedure to contact the embassy immediately in a situation like this.”

“Are you often in situations like this?”

Gabriel ignored the question. “I am a diplomat of the State of Israel, entitled to every and all diplomatic protection and immunity. I assume an officer of your rank and position would realize that my first responsibility is to contact my embassy and report what has transpired.”

“Did you report that you killed two men?”

“No.”

“Did this detail slip your mind? Or did you neglect to tell them this for other reasons?”

“We are instructed to keep telephone communications brief in all situations. I’m sure you understand.”

“Who’s we, Mr. Golani?”

“The ministry.”

“I see.”

Gabriel thought he could see a trace of a smile.

“I want to see a representative of my embassy immediately.”

“Unfortunately, due to the special circumstances of your case, we’re going to have to detain you a little longer.”