Keep him talking…

“How did this place work, Ivan?”

“You’ll find out in a minute or two.”

“When was it in operation? ’Thirty-six? ’Thirty-seven?”

Ivan stopped walking. So did everyone else.

“It was ’thirty-seven-the summer of ’thirty-seven, to be precise. It was the time of the troikas. Do you know about the troikas, Allon?”

Gabriel did. He paid the information out slowly, deliberately. “Stalin was getting annoyed at the slow pace of the killings. He wanted to speed things up, so he created a new way of putting the accused on trial: the troikas. One Party member, one NKVD officer, and a public prosecutor. It wasn’t necessary for the accused to be present during his trial. Most were sentenced without ever knowing they were even under investigation. Most trials lasted ten minutes. Some less.”

“And appeals were not permitted,” Ivan added with a smile. “They won’t be permitted now, either.”

He nodded to the pair of bodyguards who were holding Grigori upright. The procession began moving again.

Keep him talking. Bad things happen when Ivan stops talking.

“I suppose the killing took place inside the dacha. That’s why it has a cellar with a special room in it-a room with a drain in the center of the floor. And that’s why the track is winding instead of straight. Stalin’s henchmen wouldn’t have wanted the neighbors to know what was going on here.”

“And they never did. The condemned were always picked up after midnight and brought here in black cars. They were taken straight into the dacha and given a good beating to make them easy to handle. Then it was down to the cellar. Seven grams of lead in the nape of the neck.”

“And then?”

“They were thrown into carts and brought out here to the graves.”

“Who’s buried out here, Ivan?”

“By the summer of ’thirty-seven, most of the heavy cutting had already been done. Koba just had to clear away the brush.”

“The brush?”

“Mensheviks. Anarchists. Old Bolsheviks who’d been associated with Lenin. A few priests, kulaks, and aristocrats for good measure. Anyone Koba thought could possibly pose a threat was liquidated. Then their families were liquidated, too. There’s a real revolutionary stew buried beneath these woods, Allon. They all sleep together. Some nights, you can almost hear them arguing about politics. And the best part is, no one even knows they’re here.”

“Because you bought the land after the fall of the Soviet Union to make sure the dead stayed buried?”

Ivan stopped walking. “Actually, I was asked to buy the land.”

“By whom?”

“My father, of course.”

Ivan had answered without hesitation. Annoyed by Gabriel’s inquiries at first, he now actually seemed to be enjoying the exchange. Gabriel reckoned it must be easy to unburden one’s secrets to a man who would soon be dead. He tried to frame another question that would keep Ivan talking, but it wasn’t necessary. Ivan resumed his lecture without further prompting.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed, it was a dangerous time for the KGB. There was talk about throwing open the archives. Airing dirty laundry. Naming names. The old guard was horrified. They didn’t want the KGB dragged through the mud of history. But they had other motivations for keeping the secrets, too. You see, Allon, they weren’t planning to stay out of power for long. Even then, they were plotting their comeback. They succeeded, of course. The KGB, by another name, is once again running Russia.”

“And you preside over the last mass grave of the Great Terror.”

“The last? Hardly. You can’t put a shovel in the soil of Russia without hitting bone. But this one is quite large. Apparently, there are seventy thousand souls buried beneath these trees. Seventy thousand. If it ever became public…” His voice trailed off, as if he were momentarily at a loss for words. “Let us say it might cause considerable embarrassment inside the Kremlin.”

“Is that why the president is so willing to tolerate your activities?”

“He gets his cut. The tsar takes a cut of everything.”

“How much did you have to pay him for the right to kidnap my wife?”

Ivan made no response. Gabriel pressed him to see if he could provoke another outburst of anger.

“How much, Ivan? Five million? Ten? Twenty?”

Ivan wheeled around. “I’m tired of your questions, Allon. Besides, we haven’t much farther to go. Your unmarked grave awaits you.”

Gabriel looked beyond Chiara’s shoulder and saw a mound of fresh earth, covered by a dusting of snow. He told her he loved her. Then he closed his eyes. He was hearing things again.

Helicopters.

COLONEL LEONID Milchenko could finally see the property: four frozen streams meeting in a frozen marsh, a small dacha with a hole blown in the front door, a line of people walking slowly through a birch forest.

He opened the mic on his headset.

“Do you see them?”

The pilot’s helmet moved up and down rapidly.

“How close can you get?”

“Edge of the marsh.”

“That’s at least three hundred meters away.”

“That’s as close as I can put this thing down, Colonel.”

“What about the Alphas?”

“Fast rope insertion. Right into the trees.”

“Nobody dies.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Nobody dies…

Who was he kidding? This was Russia. Someone always died.

…

TEN MORE paces through the snow. Then Ivan heard the helicopters, too. He stopped. Cocked his head, doglike. Shot a glance at Rudenko. Started walking again.

Time… Precious time…

NAVOT’S MESSAGE flashed across the screens of the annex.

Carter covered his telephone and looked at Shamron.

“The FSB team confirms a line of people walking into the trees. It looks as if they’re alive, Ari!”

“They won’t be for long. When will those Alpha Group forces be on the ground?”

“Ninety seconds.”

Shamron closed his eyes.

Two turns to the right, two turns to the left…

THE BURIAL pit opened before them, a wound in the flesh of Mother Russia. The ashen sky wept snow as they filed slowly toward it, accompanied by the thumping of distant rotors. Big rotors, thought Gabriel. Big enough to make the forest shake. Big enough to make Ivan’s men restless. Ivan, too. Suddenly he was shouting at Grigori in Russian, exhorting him to walk faster to his death. But Gabriel, in his thoughts, was pleading for Grigori to slow his pace. To stumble. To do anything possible to allow the helicopters time to arrive.

Just then, the first swept in at treetop level, leaving a temporary blizzard in its wake. Ivan was briefly lost in the whiteout. When he reemerged, his face was contorted with rage. He shoved Grigori toward the edge of the pit and began screaming at his guards in Russian. Most were no longer paying attention. A few of his mutinous legion were watching the helicopter settling at the edge of the marshland. The others had their eyes on the western sky, where two more helicopters had appeared.

Four bodyguards remained loyal to Ivan. At his command they placed the condemned in a line at the edge of the pit, heels against the edge, for Ivan had decreed that all were to be shot in the face. Gabriel was placed at one end, Mikhail at the other, Chiara and Grigori in the center. At first Grigori was positioned next to Gabriel, but apparently that wouldn’t do. In a burst of rapid Russian, his gun flailing wildly, Ivan ordered the guards to quickly move Grigori and place Chiara at Gabriel’s side.

As the exchange was being made, two more helicopters thundered in from the west. Unlike the first, they did not streak past but hovered directly overhead. Ropes uncoiled from their bellies, and in an instant black-suited special forces were descending rapidly through the trees. Gabriel heard the sound of weapons dropping into the snow and saw arms raising in surrender. And he glimpsed two men in overcoats running awkwardly toward them through the trees. And he saw Oleg Rudenko trying desperately to remove the Makarov from Ivan’s grasp. But Ivan would not relinquish it. Ivan wanted his blood.