“We need to have a word,” the prime minister said. “In private.”

THEY SLIPPED quietly into an antechamber off St. George’s Hall with only their closest aides present. Like the meeting that had just taken place in Viktor Orlov’s study, it was not pleasant. Once again, voices were raised, though no one outside the room heard them. When the leaders emerged, the Russian president was smiling visibly, a rare occurrence. He was also holding a mobile phone to his ear.

Later, under questioning from the press, spokesmen for all three leaders would use precisely the same language to describe what had taken place. It was a routine scheduling matter, nothing more. Scheduling, perhaps, but hardly routine.

ON THE fourth floor of FSB Headquarters is a suite of rooms occupied by the organization’s smallest and most secretive unit. Known as the Department of Coordination, its staff of veteran officers handles only cases of extreme political sensitivity. Shortly before ten that morning, its chief, Colonel Leonid Milchenko, was standing rigidly next to his Finnish-made desk, a telephone to his ear. Though Milchenko effectively worked for the Russian president, direct conversations between the two were rare. This one was brief and tense. “Get it done, Milchenko. No fuckups. Are we clear?” The colonel said “Da” several times and hung up the phone.

“Vadim!”

Vadim Strelkin, his number two, poked a bald head into the room.

“What’s the problem?”

“Ivan Kharkov.”

“What now?”

Milchenko explained.

“Shit!”

“I couldn’t have said it any better myself.”

“Where’s the dacha?”

“Vladimirskaya Oblast.”

“How far out?”

“Far enough that we’re going to need a helicopter. Tell them to drop it into the square.”

“Can’t. Not today.”

“Why not?”

Strelkin nodded toward the Kremlin. “All airspace inside the outer ring road is closed because of the summit.”

“Not anymore.”

Strelkin picked up the phone on Milchenko’s desk and ordered the helicopter. “I know about the closure, idiot! Just do it!”

He slammed down the phone. Milchenko was standing at the map.

“How long before it arrives?”

“Five minutes.”

Milchenko calculated the travel time.

“We can’t possibly get there before Ivan.”

“Let me call Rudenko directly.”

“Who?”

“Oleg Rudenko. Ivan’s security chief. He used to be one of us. Maybe he can talk some sense into Ivan.”

“Talk sense into Ivan Kharkov? Vadim, perhaps I should explain something. If you call Rudenko, the first thing Ivan will do is kill those hostages.”

“Not if we tell him the order comes from the very top.”

Milchenko thought it over, then shook his head. “Ivan can’t be trusted. He’ll say they’re already dead. Even if they’re not.”

“Who are these people?”

“It’s complicated, Vadim. Which is why the president has bestowed this great honor upon me. Suffice it to say, there is a great deal of money at stake-for Russia and the president.”

“How so?”

“If the hostages live, money. If not…”

“No money?”

“You have a bright future, Vadim.”

Strelkin joined Milchenko at the map. “There might be another way to get some firepower out there in a hurry.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Alpha Group forces are deployed all over Moscow because of the summit. If I’m not mistaken, they’re manning all the major highways leading into the city.”

“Doing what? Directing traffic?”

“Looking for Chechen terrorists.”

But of course, thought Milchenko. They were always looking for Chechens even when there were no Chechens to be found.

“Make the call, Vadim. See if there are some Alphas along the M7.”

Strelkin did. There were. A pair of helicopters could scoop them up in under ten minutes.

“Send them, Vadim.”

“On whose authority?”

“The president’s, of course.”

Strelkin gave the order.

“You have a bright future, Vadim.”

Strelkin looked out the window. “And you have a helicopter.”

“No, Vadim, we have a helicopter. I’m not going out there alone.”

Milchenko reached for his overcoat and headed toward the door with Strelkin at his heels. Five below and snow in the air, and he was going to Vladimirskaya Oblast to save three Jews and a Russian traitor from Ivan Kharkov. Not exactly the way he’d hoped to spend the day.

THOUGH THE colonel did not know it, the four people whose lives were now in his hands were at that moment seated along the four walls of the cell, one to each wall, wrists tightly trussed at their backs, legs stretched before them, feet touching. The door to the cell was ajar; two men, guns at the ready, stood just outside. The blow that felled Mikhail had opened a deep gash above his left eye. Gabriel had been struck behind the right ear, and his neck was now a river of blood. A victim of too many concussions, he was struggling to silence the bells tolling in his ears. Mikhail was looking around the interior of the cell, as if searching for a way out. Chiara was watching him, as was Grigori.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured in Russian. “Surely you’re not thinking about trying to escape?”

Mikhail glanced at the guards. “And give those apes an excuse to kill me? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“So what’s so interesting about the cell?”

“The fact that it exists at all.”

“Meaning?”

“Did you have a dacha, Grigori?”

“We had one when I was a boy.”

“Your father was Party?”

Grigori hesitated, then nodded. “Yours?”

“For a while.”

“What happened?”

“My father and the Party went their separate ways.”

“Your father was a dissident?”

“Dissident, refusenik-you pick the word, Grigori. He just came to hate the Party and everything it stood for. That’s why he ended up in your little shop of horrors.”

“Did he have a dacha?”

“Until the KGB took it from him. And I’ll tell you something, Grigori. It didn’t have a room in the cellar like this. In fact, it didn’t have a cellar at all.”

“Neither did ours.”

“Did you have a floor?”

“A crude one.” Grigori managed a smile. “My father wasn’t a very senior Party official.”

“Do you remember all the crazy rules?”

“How could you forget them?”

“No heating allowed.”

“No dachas larger than twenty-five square meters.”

“My father got around the restrictions by adding a veranda. We used to joke that it was the biggest veranda in Russia.”

“Ours was bigger, I’m sure.”

“But no cellar, right, Grigori?”

“No cellar.”

“So why was this chap allowed to build a cellar?”

“He must have been Party.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Maybe he kept his wine down here.”

“Come on, Grigori. You can do better than that.”

“Meat? Maybe he liked meat.”

“He must have been a very senior Party official to need a meat locker this big.”

“You have another theory?”

“I used a couple of pounds of explosive to blow open the front door. If I’d placed a charge that big in front of our old dacha, it would have brought the entire place down.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“This place was well built. Purpose-built. Look at the concrete, Grigori. This is the good stuff. Not the crap they gave the rest of us. The crap that used to fall away in chunks and turn to powder after one winter.”

“It’s old, this place. The rot hadn’t set into the system when they built it.”

“How old?”

“Thirties, I’d say.”

“Stalin’s time?”

“May he rest in peace.”

Gabriel lifted his chin from his chest. In Hebrew, he asked, “What in God’s name are the two of you talking about?”

“Architecture,” Mikhail said. “The architecture of dachas, to be precise.”